Province's talent pool deepens

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Mike McEwen: Tearing up the men’s circuit in 2010 (DAVE CHIDLEY / THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES)

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Jennifer Jones: Team Canada skip still the one to beat (NATHAN DENETTE / THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES)

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Jeff Stoughton: Manitoba powerhouse suddenly has rivals (ANDREW VAUGHAN / THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES)

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Chelsea Carey: third place on women’s money list (TIM SMITH / BRANDON SUN ARCHIVES)

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Rob Fowler: from nowhere to ninth on the WCT (DAVID LIPNOWSKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

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Cathy Overton-Clapham: New team off to solid start (ROY ANTAL / POSTMEDIA NEWS ARCHIVES)

There are certain quantifiable facts about Manitoba curling.

We have more curlers per capita than anywhere else in the world. We have the most curling clubs in the world. We hold the biggest bonspiel in the world.

And then there is this: In the past couple years, the depth of the pool of elite curlers in this province wouldn't have been enough to cover a goldfish.

We had Jeff Stoughton. We had Jennifer Jones. And we had precious little else.

Which is not to slight Stoughton or Jones. The former is nothing less than the greatest skip in the history of this province; the latter, and her three-time defending Canadian champion team, are destined for the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame.

But it's just that there was little else beyond that.

Manitoba's Big 3 powerhouse in men's curling went obsolete at about the same time as dial-up Internet and the drop-off after Jones in our women's game looked a bit like the Grand Canyon -- steep and scary.

All of which is why -- with the women's Manitoba zone playdowns underway this week and the men's staring next week -- what has been happening on the cashspiel circuit this season has been so heartening to watch from a provincial perspective.

Because what has emerged from the past couple months on the cash trail is a story of a province that has gone, in one winter, from having two teams with legitimate national credentials to six teams -- three men and three women -- capable of winning nationally.

Ladies first. Heading into last weekend, the two winningest Canadian teams on the women's World Curling Tour money list were from Winnipeg. Jones, not surprisingly, held down top spot with $41,000 in earnings while Chelsea Carey -- maybe the best story in all of women's curling right now -- was the next Canuck rink on the list, in third spot with $30,000. (Switzerland's Mirjam Ott was in second spot with $31,000).

With hall of famer Cathy Overton-Clapham also rolling right along and holding down ninth spot on the money list, Manitoba had three women's teams in the top 10 -- the first time in memory that's been the case this late in the cashspiel schedule.

Now those standings will change significantly this week when they are updated with the results of last weekend's Canada Cup in Medicine Hat, Alta., where both Carey and Jones failed to qualify and Overton-Clapham did not compete.

But the point stands. In a province completely dominated by Connie Laliberte in the 1980s and 1990s and then dominated by Jones this decade, we suddenly have some depth. And we have it in a year when Manitoba will send two teams to the Canadian women's curling championship in Charlottetown in February -- Jones as Team Canada and a Team Manitoba, too.

Nice timing. What's more, it's been an almost identical renaissance on the men's side, where there were also three Manitoba men's teams in the top 10 heading into last weekend -- Mike McEwen (1st); Jeff Stoughton (4th); and Rob Fowler (9th).

Again, those standings will eventually change because of the Canada Cup, where McEwen lost the 3 vs. 4 game, Stoughton lost a tiebreaker and Fowler failed to qualify.

However it all breaks down, it is already clear that this is the most competitive men's scene we have seen in this province since Vic Peters' game went south about a decade ago and the Big 3 became just Stoughton and Kerry Burtnyk.

Burtnyk's a senior curler nowadays (he won a seniors' zone last month), but Stoughton is still Stoughton. McEwen is clearly making his case for this being the winter he has his national coming-out party. And Fowler has stunned everyone but himself with some impressive national results.

Add to that the prodigal sons in Jason Gunnlaugson and company returning to provincial action from Russia and Kevin Park maybe still lurking somewhere out there and you've got the makings of the most hotly contested provincials in at least a decade.

Are we Alberta yet? No. That province's 1-2 punch in men's curling of reigning Olympic gold medallist Kevin Martin and reigning world champ Kevin Koe is second to none.

And their women's tag team of Olympic medallists Cheryl Bernard and Shannon Kleibrink is also proven and reliable.

Can Manitoba plumb those kinds of depths? Not yet, but at least we're out of the kiddie pool.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

World Curling Tour men’s money leaders

1. Mike McEwen $73,750

2. Kevin Martin $61,000

3. Kevin Koe $46,500

4. Jeff Stoughton $40,250

5. Pat Simmons $37,300

6. Randy Ferbey $35,848

7. Thomas Lips $28,534

8. Andy Kapp $26,784

9. Rob Fowler $26,250

10. Glenn Howard $24,900

World Curling Tour women’s money leaders

1. Jennifer Jones $41,069

2. Mirjam Ott $31,914

3. Chelsea Carey $30,000

4. Heather Nedohin $29,100

5. Stefanie Lawton $28,000

6. Jessie Kaufman $22,900

7. Shannon Kleibrink $22,400

8. Amber Holland $21,600

9. Cathy Overton-Clapham $21,500

10. Bingyu Wang $18,100

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 7, 2010 B6