There are around 40 of us “friends and family” heading out to South Korea to support the curlers, at different stages this week
By Glen Kennedy
CAN beat The Stallions (TCN/Anil Mungal®)[Main image copyright The Curling News® by Anil Mungal – any other use beyond this page is strictly prohibited]
The Curling News invited any affiliated members of Canada's Olympic Men's Curling Team (Team Koe) to do some blogging on behalf of the family and friends going down to Gangneung, South Korea, for the 2018 Olympics. I have accepted the challenge, so welcome to one of my first-ever blogposts!
My name is Glen Kennedy, slightly older and more sophisticated brother (lol) of Marc Kennedy, who plays third on the Koe foursome. I am a part-time hobby curler myself, so I will do my best to describe the event through the eyes of a fan at the event.
It was Tuesday night in Edmonton, and I had just finished watching the guys win their opening game against Italy on Wednesday morning in South Korea. It was great to see them have a tight game to start, against a very motivated Team Italy. As Team Koe has done for so many years, they had a great last three ends to take control and finish off the young Italian Stallions. Their second game will be up against a much stronger opponent in Great Britain later on Wednesday, one of the better up-and-coming teams in the world.
There are around 40 of us “friends and family” heading out to South Korea to support the Canadian curlers, at different stages this week. I was to head out on Wednesday, have a quick stop in Vancouver, and land in Seoul on Thursday afternoon! A two-hour train ride will get me to Gangneung around 10pm on Thursday night. This will be a crazy travel day (or two), but will be well worth it to be out there to support the crew.
I will be running solo with my own hotel room around three kilometers south of the curling venue. I leave my wife with our three girls back at home, ages nine, seven and six. Thanks to Suzie for letting me go on this crazy adventure – Happy Valentines Day, I guess (wry face emoji). I will miss them all like crazy, but am looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet (haha!).
As you can see in the smaller photo below, I picked up a bit of new fan stuff to join my older Vancouver 2010 gear.
The last few days has been a panic to prepare, but with the help of Super Alternate Pfeif, it’s almost time to head out. I even downloaded my first ever five or six apps last night to guide me around the games, including Korea’s version of Maps & Uber, along with Google Translate. Ran out of time to pick up some Won (Korean currency), so hopefully they take American money to start!
A big congrats to Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris for their Mixed Doubles gold medal! What a great week they had, and it was great to see a different type of intensity and emotion in this great game of curling. The semifinal was an absolute roller-coaster, but you could see the experience of Kaitlyn and John persevere. John gave one of the best all-time interviews at the fifth-end break, which shows how great our game and country can be!! The mixed doubles was a great addition to the Olympics, and tough to find two better representatives to take the inaugural medal.
Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and meeting a bunch of new fans!
We’ll touch base from the other side of the globe!
[Main image copyright The Curling News® by Anil Mungal – any other use beyond this page is strictly prohibited]