Great expectations

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/01/2011 (5629 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is nothing like winning a pile of money to boost the confidence of a curler.

And so it is that there will be a little bit of a swagger in the step of Chelsea Carey and the rest of her foursome when they hit the ice in Altona this morning for the start of the 2011 Manitoba women’s curling championship.

“We’re coming in here with a confidence I don’t think any of us has ever brought into a provincials before,” Carey third Kristy Jenion said following team practice Tuesday afternoon at Altona’s Millennium Exhibition Centre.

“That’s the real change for us. Not only do we feel like contenders, we feel like if we perform the way we can, it’s in our grasp.”

The Carey foursome was third on the World Curling Tour money list this winter behind only Jennifer Jones and Mirjam Ott. And neither of those other two teams will be in Altona — Winnipeg’s Jones already has her spot at the national Scotties as Team Canada and Ott is from Switzerland.

Whether the cashspiel season matters at the provincials has long been a matter of debate. Carey herself isn’t sure. “There’s a whole different feel at provincials,” she said Tuesday. “I don’t know if it matters much.”

What’s your opinion, Cathy Overton-Clapham? “I don’t think it matters at all.”

We’ll find out soon. The 16 teams in Altona have been split into two pools of eight. A round robin runs through Saturday afternoon, at which point the top two teams in each pool advance to the playoffs. The provincial final goes Sunday afternoon.

Here’s how we rate the field:

The Co-favourites: Chelsea Carey (Morden), Cathy Overton-Clapham (Fort Rouge)

If they handed out Manitoa women’s titles based on lifetime performance, Overton-Clapham — a five-time Canadian champion and winner of the last three in a row — wins for fun this week.

But if they handed out Manitoba women’s titles based on most recent performance, Carey wins after a winter that saw her own the cashspiel circuit generally and go 4-0 against Overton-Clapham in particular.

Yes, it’s true that they don’t reward either type of performance at this most egalitarian of sporting events, where seedings are formalities and everyone starts even. Still, it would be a surprise if it’s anyone other than these two teams in Sunday’s final.

The Stalking Horse: Jill Thurston (Granite)

Thurston and third Kristin Phillips are the defending Manitoba champions and proved with a strong run at last year’s national Scotties that they can play. But Thurston has a new front end this season after some team strife led lead Raunora Westcott and second Leslie Wilson to jump ship to play with Overton-Clapham this winter.

Still, Thurston’s new front end is capable — Jenna Loder is a Manitoba and Canadian junior champion, while Georges is a former provincial mixed champion — and they have had a respectable cash season in their first winter together.

The Dark Horse: Kim Link (East St. Paul)

Link comes into this event fresh off a win at the Manitoba Women’s Bonspiel a couple weekends ago. This team has played well when they’ve played this winter and you cannot overlook the fact they have a two-time Manitoba women’s champion at third in Maureen Bonar.

The Pack: Lisa Blixhavn (Brandon), Brette Richards (Assiniboine Memorial), Joelle Brown (Fort Rouge), Janet Harvey (Assiniboine-Memorial), Kerri Einarson (Fort Rouge)

Blixhavn, formerly Roy, has made some noise at this thing before. Richards, as second for Barb Spencer in 2009, was the best part of maybe the worst team Manitoba ever sent to the Scotties. Brown is always capable but will be dealing with the recent death of her partner, Pat Spiring. Harvey has won the province twice, but hasn’t made a peep this winter. And Einarson (formerly Flett) is best known for getting in a burned-rock controversy with Jennifer Jones at this event a few years ago.

They can all play and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see one or more of them in the playoffs come Saturday. But it would take the run of their lives for any of these teams to actually win this week.

Along for the ride: Michelle Montford (Assiniboine Memorial), Betty Buurma (Carberry), Deb McCreanor (La Salle), Karen Rosser (Springfield), Tina Kozak (Brookdale), Bev Lumax (Swan River), Kelly Wiwcharuk (Snow Lake)

Montford was a solid junior and has excellent pedigree — her father Eric is a former Manitoba junior champion and one of the top icemakers in the country. He’ll also be making the ice this week in Altona, which cannot hurt. Rosser won a woman’s title in 2001 under her former name Karen Young. And Buurma has been to a few of these things and proved herself, if nothing else, to be the life of the party.

But realistically, none of those three teams — or the four others — have a hope in heck of playing on Sunday. If they ever do shorten the field for this event — and there’s been talk for years of doing just that — it would be teams exactly like this that would most likely find themselves outside looking in.

Prediction: No female curlers in Manitoba — and only a couple in Canada — can match Overton-Clapham’s track record in the big events. On top of that, she’s got the best front end in Manitoba. And finally, she’s got all kinds of motivation to get back to the nationals and hang one around the neck of Jones, who unceremoniously punted her from the team last spring.

But I’m still going with Carey to win this one. Carey’s got a fine front end of her own in Kristen Foster and Lindsay Titheridge, but what tips the balance in her favour are two things. First, her team has had the better year on the cashspiel circuit. And second, she wins the battle at third. Carey third Kristy Jenion has lost a couple of provincial finals over the years and those experiences coupled with the extra breathing room that comes with moving from skip to third will be welcome. Overton-Clapham, on the other hand, has had to replace her regular third, Breanne Meakin, with veteran Karen Fallis for this event because Meakin is going to be otherwise occupied as skip of Team Manitoba at the Canadian juniors in Calgary this weekend. Fallis is a great curler and a lovely person, but that’s still a step down at this point.

The bottom line is this: These teams have met four times this year — three times with Meakin at third for Overton-Clapham and once with Fallis at third — and Carey has won every single time. If it all comes down to one game in the final on Sunday — and it sure looks that way to me — I don’t see how you cannot give the clear edge to Carey.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca