The wives come to curling

After the guys have been going to curling for over a year, the wives finally decided to come down and check it out.  We all went out for dinner and then headed over to the ice center.  I think they got bored part way through the match and I don't think any of them gained any interest in joining us on the ice during the next session.  I suspect that this will continue to be a 'guys night.'
Here we are at the beginning of the match, I am one of the two sweepers, the one on the right with the blue short sleeve shirt with the gray sweatshirt under it.  (we are the red stones)  We are "sweeping" in front of the stone to help it to continue moving forward towards the house.

Here we are later on in that end, you can see that the other team (yellow) has one parked right in the middle of the house (the rings).  We are standing to the left discussing how to knock it out.   It basically comes down to two things, strategy and execution of that strategy.  A good plan won't work if you can't place the stone where you want it.

Here I am lining up a throw, that is me squatting down getting ready to throw.  My right foot is on a rubber pad (called the hack) which is set into the ice.  That gives you a solid place to push off of when you go to throw.  You basically squat down, shift your body weight backwards and then propel yourself forward with your right leg.  You then slide along the ice and release the stone in the direction that you want it to go (you can also put a spin on it by twisting the handle as you release it).  You have to release the stone prior to the black line that you can see ahead of me.  You can also see my team mate in blue showing me where to try to place the shot.

As you can tell in the pictures, there are a lot of bodies on out there on the ice.  There are 4 matches going on, so 8 teams of 4 are on the ice.  We are currently in a 3 way tie for fourth place and the playoffs start Monday.