Here's how last season finished, so everybody can stop asking me. Rinks are listed by skip. Congratulations to all our champions, and thanks to everyone who curled, swept, scraped, pebbled, kept score and made coffee.

Men's League

Championship final: Moberg 7, Niemi 5, in an extra end. Champions: David Moberg (skip), Darrel Melcher (vice), Kevin Moreland (second), Arthur Orton (lead). The Niemi rink was Francis Niemi (skip), George Hellman (vice), me at second, and Larry Clark at lead. I missed a takeout in the ninth end that I will be thinking about until November. I'm not bitter. (I'm a little bitter.)

Women's League

Champions: Brenda Holmberg (skip), Katherine McGill (vice), Beverly Nickerson (second), Rhonda Parkerson (lead). Their third title in four years. Shirley Englund's rink, with two first-year curlers on it, came in second, which tells you something about those new members.

Mixed League

Champions: Charlie Larsen (skip), Christine McKenna (vice), Alfred Hecht (second), Peggy Capps (lead). Charlie is 72 and he made the ice they won on. Somebody asked him if that was fair and he said it's the same ice for everybody, he just knows it better.

Juniors

Champions: Karl, Sarah, Joseph and Angelina. Coach McLean says Brittany's team improved more than anybody in the club, kids or grown-ups, and that he wants all sixteen of them back on the ice on the first Saturday in November.

The 86th Two Pines Bonspiel
January 22-24, 1999 · 24 rinks · 4 events

A event: Thomas Godfrey, Mathew May, Andy Singer and Jill Burrough came down from Thunder Bay for the first time and went home with the big trophy. Lovely people, and they bought the first round AND the second. They've already sent their entry for January.

D event: Alice Weibel, 64, made the shot of the weekend in the D final: a double takeout with her last stone that scored three and won it. The whole clubroom was standing at the window.

Hard Luck Award: Louis Westberg, who at 75 curled six games in two days, lost the C final on the last stone, and then found his car battery dead in the parking lot. It was twenty-six below. We gave him a jump and a plaque.