Synopsis

Long Bay resident Donald Foley, a life long curler and more recent curling coach, has just passed away. He has requested that his cremated ashes be bored into a specific curling stone he has just had retrieved from the bottom of Long Bay. His will also has a non-binding codicil to reunite the last team he coached to curl in the Golden Broom Bonspiel in town, a Long Bay team which has never won and that team which was the closest ever to doing so. Donald wants that specific stone in which he is buried to be delivered as the final shot to sit on the button for the win for the Long Bay team. Beyond the four team members not having curled at all since their last bonspiel ten years ago, they each have issues in their lives which may make coming together as a team and winning, and curling in its entirety difficult or a non-priority. Lead Neil Bucyk's life is directed by his controlling wife Linda, a right she believes she has as his livelihood is in her family's business, a funeral home. Second Eddie Strombeck and his wife Lilly are trying to conceive, her ovulation cycles which may trump all else in his life especially as they have long tried to have a baby without success (although they are having a good time in the trying). Third James Lennox, who has recently returned to town with Joanne, the latest in a long line of not too bright casual and short term girlfriends, is a drug dealer whose biggest priority may be to evade the thugs to who he owes a lot of money. But the biggest question mark may be skip Chris Cutter, who unilaterally made the decision to break up the team when he left town to work in the Alberta oil patch. He quit curling over guilt in not reporting a burnt rock in that last bonspiel, that rock which he ultimately threw into Long Bay (i.e. the rock in which Donald is now buried). The issue of skill may be somewhat addressed if Chris is willing to reconnect with his father and Donald's friend, Gordon Cutter, with who Chris has been estranged over family issues but who remains the most knowledgeable curler in town. The other part of the skill issue is that the Butte team will be curling in the bonspiel, their entire team, but especially skip Alexander Yount, who are treated like rock stars in the curling world. If Chris remains in town to curl, he also has to address some personal issues, as his departure ten years ago broke up his relationship with Donald's daughter, Julie Foley, that adversity which in part led to she coming out ahead professionally as a member now of the space program. However, Donald's other daughter, single mother physiotherapist and admitted alcoholic Amy Foley, who was Chris' drinking buddy and is everyone's best friend, has always had feelings for Chris herself, something of which Chris and Julie, deep in their hearts, are aware.—Huggo

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