Jones hits pothole in Japan

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/03/2015 (4081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SAPPORO, Japan — On a crisp and sunny Japan morning, embroiled in a tight game, Jennifer Jones went on a fruitless hunt for offence that simply never came.

Instead, outshot for most of the game, the Team Canada skip fell 6-4 to Switzerland’s Alina Paetz in the World Women’s Curling Championship’s 1 vs. 2 Page playoff game. That means, for the very first time during this championship season, after blazing comparatively comfortable trails through the provincial and national titles, the Winnipeg skip found herself in a fight to keep her hopes for a final berth alive.

“We’re pretty disappointed,” Jones said moments after leaving the sheet. “We didn’t come out and play as well as we’d like in the first half of that game, but we made a couple of shots when we had to. And we’ll just have to be a little bit sharper, and hopefully have an opportunity tomorrow.”

Meanwhile Paetz, a red-hot rookie at these worlds and all of 25 years old, will get a crack at the title in Sunday’s final.

“At the moment, I don’t really know what to say, it’s awesome for us,” Paetz said, still basking in the glow of the win. “We’re completely satisfied this far, but we want to win this thing.”

The loss left one more chance for Jones, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn McEwen to make the final, a semifinal battle against Russia that was set to start early Saturday evening, by the Japanese clock, which would have been 3 a.m. Saturday morning back in Winnipeg.

Look, the world is a big place, and time zones are funny things. By the time most people read this story in the dead-tree newspaper, the semifinal will be said and done.

Maybe Jones won, and will get a last crack at Paetz Sunday afternoon, hoping third time’s the charm. (Switzerland also accounted for one of their two losses in the round robin.) Or maybe she lost, and will regroup to battle for a bronze, leaving the Canadian women’s world championship drought to drag out to an eighth year.

Still, it is our work to document the story of what happened at Tsukisamu Gymnasium that morning, to put it on the record for future curling fans to find.

So here’s how it went: In front of a cosy and familiar crowd in the old Olympic hockey barn, with Western pop tunes occasionally jangling on the stereo and chants of “hopp Suisse” filling up the stands, Paetz started hot, and shut Canada out long enough to keep the game just out of the reach of Jones’ hands.

The Swiss team played aggressive, hitting early and often, just like they had planned. Compare: Canada threw 49 draws through the game, while the Swiss slid just 26. Usually, given the option, they chose the hit, and many were exquisite — second Marisa Winkelhausen, for instance, shot 96 per cent on 19 hits and a single draw.

“We discussed this before the game with our coaches, and I think it was a good strategy against them,” Paetz said.

Not a bad decision, since off the top they were throwing hot. The Swiss didn’t miss much in the first few ends — sure, lead Nicole Schwaegli’s very first rock slid straight through the house, but that was quickly forgotten when Paetz regrouped to leap out with a first-end deuce.

If that set the tone, what followed was a scrape-and-go game for Jones, who struggled to find offence, and all too often lost the game of inches.

Looking back, Jones thought, it was her missed hammer shot in the third end where the game got away. The Canadians had a good chance then, after Swiss third Nadine Lehmann flashed a shot, opening up a window for Jones to wrangle a deuce, maybe even three.

But Paetz jostled things around enough with her second shot to close that window to a crack, and with her hammer, Jones angled for an outturn double takeout that just couldn’t knock one Swiss rock far enough back. She had to settle for a single there, allowing the Swiss a 2-1 lead.

That story seemed to repeat, over and over. In the fourth, the Canadians cut the bleeding with crowded house, forcing Paetz to fail her final double-takeout attempt and score only one. In the fifth end, Jones had a chance to draw for a deuce but the shooter rubbed off her own shot rock, sticking her with another single.

During the break, a mascot that looked something like a cross between a baby astronaut and a can of spraypaint, as well as a contingent of enthusiastic fans bearing Sapporo Curling Club sweatshirts, led the crowd through The Village People’s YMCA. That has nothing to do with the game, but it was certainly a moment.

There was another single for Switzerland in the sixth end, a reply single for Canada in seven. In the eighth, a flubbed double-takeout try by Paetz handed Jones a steal of one, and tied the game at four apiece. So it was tight, late, but Canada had been chasing all the way — so when Paetz capitalized on a pair of less-than-perfect Jones shots in the ninth to take a deuce, it almost felt inevitable.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca