Taking two weeks off after our team won the Canadian curling trials in Edmonton definitely felt good. An event of that magnitude knocks the wind out of you, and it takes time to get feeling good again.

After celebrating the New Year, it was time to lace the shoes back up and head to Guelph, Ont., for The National - the second stop on the Grand Slam circuit.

There was some rust showing on our game when we got back on the ice, and we ended up missing the playoffs after finishing 1-4 in the round robin. Funny how difficult our sport can be after you've taken some time off.

Following our somewhat sketchy showing in Guelph, we're now looking forward to our first training camp since the Olympic trials. With the Skins Game and the Canadian Open in Winnipeg coming up in the next two weeks, we're excited to get back to training hard and enjoying some good hard battles on the ice.

The end of January has us in Vancouver looking at the Olympic curling venue as well
as the Olympic Village and other sports venues. This will be a very exciting weekend for the guys, with this being their first Olympic experience.

We have the Richmond Curling Club available for training while we're there, so we'll have a chance to keep our game sharp.

The week prior to leaving for Vancouver will be all about getting focused and training hard so we are as prepared as possible for the Olympic Games.