the Importance of the Lead

Regular readers will know that I began curling on a couple of years ago and I'm not very good, to put it gently. This information leads to two related points:

1. If you had a really crappy player on your team, where would you play him. Almost surely you would not want him as skip or vice, because those positions can cost the team a whole lot of points if they miss their shots.
   
   Second is a good place for such a person, especially if they can through up-weight with any accuracy. But first, or lead, might be better if they have little idea how to throw the desired weight and miss the broom a lot (which describes me).


2. Man, are lead rocks important. I have learned the hard way that when I sort of make my shots, our team is likely to score and score a lot; but when I miss my shots, we tend to give up a lot of points.

I'm not the sole determinant of how the team does; I know that. These are probablistic statements. But they sure seem to have a lot of merit.