Subdued welcome home for members of Team Jones

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This article was published 23/03/2015 (4043 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There was no bagpiper to accompany them down the escalator this time around.

And the red carpet and hundreds of adoring fans that awaited the Jennifer Jones team on the main floor of James Armstrong Richardson International Airport when they returned home last year from Sochi was replaced Monday night by regular old airport tile and a handful of fans, most of them family.

It’s not quite the same returning home with silver from the women’s world curling championship as it is gold from the Winter Olympics and the differences were on display for all to see at the airport Monday as the Jones team returned home from a disappointing second-place finish in Sapporo, Japan over the weekend.

It wasn’t just the airport welcome the Jones team received Monday that was different from their triumphant return from Sochi. While the entire Jones team flew home to Winnipeg directly from Russia with their Olympic gold medals hanging around their necks, this time around it was just lead Dawn McEwen, second Jill Officer and alternate Jennifer Clarke-Rouire who flew home to Winnipeg.

Jones and third Kaitlyn Lawes weren’t on hand, choosing instead to fly directly from Japan to the Ontario homes of their respective partners.

And so it was a much more subdued affair Monday night for a Jones team that had to settle for being the second-best team in the world, losing Sunday’s final 5-3 to Switzerland’s Alina Paetz.

“Obviously we’re a little bit disappointed,” Officer said Monday night, “but I think we’re pretty proud of our finish and the fact we made (Paetz) make a draw to the button to win…

“We fought until the bitter end and, like I said, made her make a difficult shot for the win.”

It is the burden of curling for Canada that a silver-medal finish at the worlds is widely regarded as a disappointment by a nation of curling fans that has been trained to expect nothing less than gold in a sport Canada has always dominated internationally.

But while Canada still dominates the men’s game, it’s actually a very different story in women’s curling. With the second-place result in Sapporo, Canada has now gone seven full years without winning gold in women’s curling — tying the longest gold-medal drought for this country in men’s or women’s curling.

Jones gets credit for being the last women’s skip to win gold for Canada at the worlds — in 2008 in Vernon, B.C. — but she must also contend with the fact the win in Vernon remains her only gold medal in five trips to the worlds.

Among Canadian skips, only Colleen Jones — who won two golds in six trips to the worlds and was widely derided by Canadian fans for her failures internationally — also came away without gold at the worlds on four different occasions.

In contrast, the late Sandra Schmirler — the only other Canadian women’s skip to win Olympic gold — won gold at the worlds all three times she represented Canada.

In addition to this year’s silver and the gold in Vernon, Jones also won bronze in 2010 at the worlds in Swift Current., Sask. She missed the medal podium entirely in trips to the worlds in 2005 and 2009.

McEwen was looking on the bright side of things at the airport last night. “I have a medal in every colour now,” said McEwen. “So I can’t really complain about that.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek