World Curling Championships 2012: Team Canada Fifth Amy Nixon amuses at the back of the house

Amy Nixon likes to chirp. But not from the cheap seats. In fact, if she had to pay for her perch at the World Women's Curling Championship, her chair would be costly. That's because she's all a Twitter from her spot directly behind the house, as the fifth for Heather Nedohin's Team Canada. If you're looking for a little insight and humour as the tournament hits the playoff stage this weekend in Lethbridge, Alberta, you might want to follow @teamcan5thplaye for your curling social media fix.

It seems Nixon watches intently, but makes sure she has some fun, too, tweeting up a storm over every tap, angle raise, draw to the four foot and flashed take out, as well as some of the behind-the-scenes small stuff that fans of any sport like to be part of.

Many of her tweets (as well as those of Team Canada's fans) are adorned with the now legendary #shitballs hashtag, which will undoubtedly follow Nedohin for the rest of her career.

Nervous observations, excited exhortations, and insights into the less than glamourous duties of a fifth player on a curling team. Many of them dosed with subtle irony, many of them dosed with outright sarcasm. As well as Cadbury Mini-Eggs. All colourful and entertaining.

Some examples....

While her mates struggled to a round robin loss to the underdog Italian team, Nixon tweeted out:

Earlier in the tournament, we found out that a fifth is not allowed to merely sit there on the bench tweeting around. There are chores to be done, to prepare sustenance for the 5th end break:

That's when she's not playing. Earlier in the week, Nixon was pressed into action when Nedohin's usual Second, Jessica Mair, took ill with a case of the flu. No tweeting while playing, of course, but Nixon did offer insight as to how hard the job of sweeping can really be. Apparently, it can put a girl's reproductive future in jeopardy:

With her shooting 85% in filling in for Mair, Team Canada split two Tuesday games with Nixon on the ice. That led her to muse about the comforts of sitting and watching:

Then, the next day:

Amongst the tweets pertaining to the play in front of her, Nixon had time for a little flirting with curling TV star Johnny "The Hammer" Chow:"

Well, a girl can't cyber-flirt all day with "The Hammer" when her teammates are battling out there. Besides, it seemed that he fell out of favour with her, anyway, when he tweeted out something nice about Canada's opponent at the time, Korea. To which Nixon responded:

Johnny may not have stood a chance, at any rate. Because Nixon's mates then stole back her attention. The game really is the thing:

What on earth would a fifth player ever have done before social media to keep themselves entertained?

Not to mention us.