Jones claims record-breaking eighth provincial title

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This article was published 14/01/2018 (2985 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KILLARNEY, Man. — There’s not much left to win, in this sport, that Jennifer Jones hasn’t won, not much to do that she hasn’t done: snowbound small-town bonspiels, grand slams, five Canadian titles, and gleaming Olympic gold.

And truthfully, the numbers don’t matter so much to her anymore. They begin to run together, flowing into a river of moments where her legacy inched a little higher. What’s an eighth buffalo jacket, when you’ve already won seven?

But six Canadian titles, well, she hasn’t won that. So with this year’s Olympics out of her grasp — it still aches a little, weeks later — that’s as good a goal as any to set. Six Canadian titles, that would be something, a grand thing to get.

Now, after narrowly claiming a record-breaking eighth Manitoban championship, Jones will get her chance.

Oh, it was a thriller, nearly a giant-killer, but Jones did it, surviving a tenacious challenge by finalist Darcy Robertson to claim Sunday’s championship game 7-6. It came down to her last rock, a careful draw for a game-winning deuce.

The butterflies fluttered inside her, as she settled into the hack — “If you don’t feel butterflies, why would you play?” she said, after — but as soon as it left her hand, the nerves began to settle. She knew she had made the shot.

“I felt great with the speed,” she said, of the winner. “As long as I had decent line, it was pretty hard to miss it.”

The win broke her own record for provincial titles won as a skip, and set a new record for titles won by an individual at any position; prior to this, she was in a three-way tie with Janet Arnott and Cathy Overton-Clapham, with seven.

“To be honest, the number doesn’t really matter to me,” Jones said. “To have success with my girls is fun. I love playing with them… and I love playing with them in championship games, where we come out and win.

“It’s what you train so hard for, and that’s really what means more to me than the actual number.”

It’s the seventh provincial win for second Jill Officer, and fourth for third Kaitlyn Lawes and lead Dawn McEwen.

Credit is due to Robertson, in the final. Jones had strolled out to a 4-2 lead at the fifth-end break, and seemed to have control of the game. But Robertson and her Assiniboine Memorial team loaded up the pressure, and clawed back.

In the eighth, Jones flubbed her last shot, leaving Robertson an easy draw for three and a tie game; in the ninth, Robertson’s team held shot rock. Jones tried for a thin hit for at least two, but her rock flashed through the house.

Then came the 10th, an end full of gut-twisting tension and a back-and-forth draw competition. Robertson’s last shot failed to get in front of Jones’ shot rock; that gave Jones the chance not only to tie, but draw for the winning deuce.

Later, Robertson said she didn’t think the team didn’t play their best game; the skip shot a decent 76 per cent, and 75 as a team, but their misses gave Jones too much window to hang on. A disappointment, but a respectable one.

“I’m very proud of my team,” Robertson said. “We played great all week, and that’s curling. It’s sometimes a cruel game.”

Now, Jones can look ahead to the 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Penticton, B.C. She will join a 16-team field that includes last year’s Manitoba champion, Michelle Englot, entering nationals this year as Team Canada.

They will have to do it without third Kaitlyn Lawes, a pistol for Team Jones in these playoffs; she’s off to the Olympics with her mixed doubles partner, John Morris. No word on who will play third; they’ll have to figure it out quick, though.

Lawes does plan to join the team this week at the Canadian Open grand slam, which kicks off Tuesday.

“You can’t replace her,” Jones said. “We’re hoping to get somebody that has a little bit of experience, somebody that’s fun to be around, somebody we like. Honestly, we haven’t talked about it. We just wanted to get through this.”

So that’s a wrap here in Killarney, where five bone-chilling days were warmed by healthy crowds, hot country in the lounge and flashes of great curling. In an arena that holds around 600, the attendance for the week topped 3,200.

Along the way, there were delightful surprises. There was Joelle Brown, a familiar face at provincials, who upset Jones and other top teams en route to the 2-vs-2 Page playoff game; it was her first playoff spot in eight years.

And, on the other end of a long career arc, there were young rising stars. There was Altona skip Mackenzie Zacharias, just 18 years old and already on her second women’s provincials: she was 4-3 in the round robin.

Or consider rookie Rebecca Lamb, 21 and just weeks off competing in her final provincial juniors. She came into this week with a goal to win at least one game. Her Stonewall team won the first they played, and another along the way.

Heck, she even gave Robertson a game on Friday night.

There were also disappointments. There was the long exhale of rising skips Briane Meilleur and Shannon Birchard: they entered the week in the top five seeds, and were widely expected to make some noise in the playoffs.

Both missed playoffs — in Birchard’s case, for the first time since her rookie outing — and finished the round robin at 3-4. But this is not the end of the road for them, not by a long shot. They will be back — and no doubt, wiser for it.

“These experiences are always good moving forward,” Meilleur said, after her last game on Saturday. “I thought we definitely had a chance. I thought we could win it all, if we played well… it just didn’t go our way, this time.”

And there was heartbreak for Kerri Einarson, the 2016 Manitoba champion hungry to get back on the national stage. She came out hot, rolling undefeated through the round robin, but lost to Jones and then Robertson in the playoffs.

For her, a spot of light: Einarson’s quest to make the Scotties is not over yet. Due to a format change for national curling competitions, she will head to a play-in wild card game in Penticton, and battle to make the main draw.

There she will face former Manitoba champ — and recent Olympic trials finalist — Chelsea Carey, who fell out of the Alberta playdowns in a semifinal upset on Sunday. The winner gets the last berth in a 16-team field in Penticton.

It’s a bit of a tough spot for her to be in — she’d rather have her fate in her own hands, she said — but she’ll take it.

Next year will be different, somehow. The Olympic quadrennial is over; the coming months will bring a flurry of retirements and reconfigurations, even changes of province. Many curlers don’t actually know what will happen.

So let this quad end, the way it began: with Jennifer Jones, ascendant, basking in the applause of a rural Manitoba rink. A legend still being created, the buffalo queen, pushing to be cement a legacy, forever, as lady of these rings.

After all, Jones said, after the last bagpipe notes faded away — who knows how long they’ll be playing for?

“I feel like I can, my body feels great,” she says. “But we’ll sit down and reflect after the season’s over. You can’t make a decision when your heart aches a bit… I’ve got a few questions to answer, before we can make a decision.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca