They’ve come too far, for far too long, to mess it all up now.
And so the eight members of the Canadian men’s curling team are spending the three weeks before the Winter Olympics sequestered in a rental home in Vancouver, British Columbia. They train only when the rink nearby is empty and otherwise pass the time shooting pool, sitting in a hot tub and thinking about their families back home.
"It’s like a frat house without the booze,” said Marc Kennedy, a 2010 gold medalist and an alternate on this year’s team, who is dealing with the disappointment of missing one of his daughters’ dance recitals. "Everybody here has pretty wonderful spouses.”