Went curling today - the most frustrating game of my life.  100% negative ice.  Always throw one handle going each direction... the opposite to normal and it would still fall off 4 to 7 feet.  No boards between any of the sheets nor lines so you just had to judge if you are on the other guys sheet.  5 sheets across the arena.  They melt the hacks into the ice by sitting rocks on top of them for a few minutes until they melt the ice and sink in.  When we pull them out at the end for people to skate there then we put holes in the ice.  There are rings melted in the ice where they sat on the same spot for too long.  There are raised ruts from the zamboni that you have to navigate around... you aim your stone at the rut and do a bank shot to get it to come back to where you want it to go... if you don't hit it right it comes off too soon or too late or if you have too much weight you can make it over the ridge and then it goes off to nowhere land on the other side.  Oh yeah Weight.  Those who know me on the ice know I usually have no problem throwing take out..... Draw weight today was 2.1 tee to hog.  Full take out would be a hogged stone... started doing some of my really fast ones and they would still fall 4 to 6 feet... The one guy that I was with threw really hard and could get it to only fall a foot or two... one went straight through and the skips missed it and it went off the boards at the end.  I am amazed it didn't go through the boards....  I stopped trying to run after them to sweep since there is no way any sweeping at his speed would help.   They were telling me with the negative ice that they deal with sweeping makes it curl more ... doesn't keep it straight... so much to get used to.  Not sure if they will ask me back since I did so bad but oh well ... I can now say I have played on Arena ice.... It did get a little faster by the 8th end and the one guy said he could tell I was more in my element when it was faster ice(still very slow ice for Canada 2.3 then for draw weight) and my delivery was a lot different when I wasn't trying to throw it so hard.   For score boards they hang them on the glass at one of the ends.  We played three on three on my sheet which was nice since I got to practice more... we lost in the last end but oh well they would have only had two players without me.

Wonder if the hockey players mind the curling rings

Hockey on the ice before we went out

I was facing the ice taking the pictures of the hockey players playing before curling started then you turn around and they have a nice fire place for people to go to to get warm while they watch

This weird plant was in the parking lot.  All four from the same main trunk of some kind of palm with funny white flowers growing out of the top of the green leaves.  Pretty cool looking whatever it is