Jennifer Jones suffers upset in day one of Scotties

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This article was published 20/02/2016 (3811 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alta. – Just in case anyone thought Jennifer Jones might have a smooth ride at this Scotties, Chelsea Carey burst out of the gate to put that theory to rest.

Carey, the former 2014 Manitoba champion and now Alberta skip, opened the 2016 Canadian women’s curling championship with a thunderous 12-5 win over Jones, the defending national champion.

That’s a hot start for Carey, who looked loose and comfortable in her first game of the week.

“We sort of came in, saying ‘even if we lose, it’s not that big a deal,’” Carey said. “What we really wanted to get out of today was figuring the ice out, and feeling like we’re communicating well. It’s a game that you know is going to be a tough one… I think we’re in a really good place now. If we can keep it going like we did just now, we’ll have a pretty good chance with communication.”

The tilt turned on two big ends. After blanking the first and collecting a single in the second, Carey studded the house with rocks in the third. Jones’s first shot crashed on a guard, and her hit-and-roll hammer came off at a bad angle, and rolled out the house. On the back of those two misses, the Albertans collected a steal of four, and vaulted into a 5-0 lead.

The teams traded singles for the next four ends, until Carey was leaving 7-2. In the eighth, Carey blinked: her final shot came in wrong, turning an attempted double takeout into a single, and leaving a double for Jones to play. The Olympic champion made no mistake, launching a slick hit-and-roll double that scored three, and clawed Carey’s lead to 7-5.

But the Albertans came roaring back. Carey filled up the house again in the ninth, and made no mistake on her final two shots. The last of those neatly removed Jones’ sole rock from the house, and scored a whopping five to bring on handshakes.

“I thought we played well in the second half of the game, lots of positives to take forward,” Jones said. “It’s the first game, so we’re okay… it’s always kind of a kick in the butt coming into tomorrow. It’s not the way you want to start, but if you’re going to lose a game, we always say the first game of the event’s the one to lose. I’m happy with how we finished the game.”

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Elsewhere in the opening draw at Revolution Place, Saskatchewan’s Jolene Campbell kicked things off with an 11-7 win over Nova Scotia’s Jill Brothers, and Quebec veteran Marie-France Larouche dispatched Ontario’s Jenn Hanna 9-5.

The draw also featured the final of the pre-qualifying round, which sees the four lowest-ranked provincial representatives battle for a spot in the main draw. This time, British Columbia skip Karla Thompson survived a tight 8-5 battle from Northwest Territories veteran Kerry Galusha. Thompson and her first-year team will now move on to the rest of the week.

That starts on Saturday night, when they will face Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson in her first game of the week. That draw is set to start at 7:30 p.m. CST.

Jones will be back on the ice at 9:30 a.m. CST on Sunday, when she faces Prince Edward Island veteran Suzanne Birt. Einarson will also be playing in that draw, where she will face Team Nova Scotia.

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.