On the evening of Fri., March 8th, a Leaside Curling Club team achieved an extraordinary feat. An eight-ender.
Eight-enders are a curler’s ultimate dream come true. According to Curling Canada: “An eight-ender (8-ender) is an end where all eight stones score for one team; a very rare occurrence.”
The thought of attaining a perfect score in one end by scoring the maximum value of eight points by having all eight rocks remaining in the house (the target) is almost unfathomable.
Let’s talk odds!
The chance of hitting a hole-in-one in golf is 1 in 12,500. The odds of finding a pearl in an oyster is 1 in 10,000. The odds that an amateur bowler will bowl a perfect game is 1 in 11,500.
And the odds of curling an eight-ender? An estimated 1 in 120,000. As in, incredibly rare!
They are so rare in fact that the Canadian Curling Association has a special award to recognize any eight-ender scored in the country.
How did the Leaside Curling Club achieve this feat?
The team of Mike Ball, Grace Bugg, Brad Morrison and Christie Stevenson had the club buzzing with an impressive performance most, if not all, patrons there that night had ever witnessed.
The Friday night team have played together for some time with each having their own unique experience in the curling world.
While Ball didn’t play as a child, he has been a member of the Leaside club for 23 years. Morrison curled as a junior and has been with the club for 21 years.
Stevenson began playing in Grade 9 and came from a long line of curlers. Her father curled so often, in fact, that her mom joked that “her first “sentence” was “Daddy gone bonspiel.”
Bugg, meanwhile, has been curling for 40 years and has been with the Leaside club for the past 23 years.
Each curler remembers the exact moment of the eight-ender.
Bugg recalls, “I didn’t realize that Brad was drawing for the eight-ender until I was holding the broom (as vice) and looking at all the rocks in play. When it stopped in the middle of the house we started jumping up and down with excitement and looking for a phone to record the final rock placements.”
Stevenson says that, after the final shot, “I was just catching my breath and trying to believe what had happened. I think there were high fives, but I know it took me a moment to count it myself.”
The curlers in the club that night were cheering as they looked on from the lounge windows. They were also all treated to drinks by the winning team.
The support was no surprise to Morrison as he notes that “it’s been a great community there. It’s a wonderful club.”
For Ball, an eight-ender is “always something you dream about.”
Next dream on the agenda? Morrison jokes that since the team has beaten the odds with their curling feat, it might just be time to buy that lottery ticket.
