Rocky start for Team Canada

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/02/2016 (3825 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alta. — As the euphoria faded from big opening-day wins, the most promising Scotties rookies felt the real grind of the week settle in.

Yep, Sunday brought a few day-two growing pains for Manitoba and Saskatchewan, though buffalo gal Kerri Einarson ultimately came out on top.

Meanwhile, the rest of the field remained in flux — other than at the very top, where Chelsea Carey and Team Alberta continued their winning ride. The former Manitoba champion bested Newfoundland and British Columbia Sunday to remain the sole unbeaten skip in the field through three games.

The second day of action at Revolution Place also put defending champion Jennifer Jones in the win column, when she handily out-curled P.E.I. 9-4 in the morning. It didn’t last. At night, Jones wound up on the ropes against veteran Northern Ontario skip Krista McCarville, in a tricky and tightly played match.

At first, Jones looked comfortable as she collected deuces each time she held hammer. But McCarville stole a single in the eighth, then secured the force in the ninth to leave Jones coming home 7-6 without the last rock; as the crowd roared, McCarville drew for a winning deuce with her last shot.

“I thought it was a well-played game,” Jones said. “We kind of gave momentum back a little bit in the eighth, so we’d like that one back, but she made a nice shot to win… I didn’t think we finished as strong as we’d like. But that’s okay, we’ll learn, regroup and come back strong tomorrow.”

Elsewhere, Manitoba’s Einarson and Saskatchewan’s Jolene Campbell wrestled with rocky Sundays — and as they prepare to meet in tonight’s evening draw at 7:30 p.m. CST, a lot could be riding on which of the first-time provincial champion skips is making the quickest adjustment to nationals.

Einarson, who beamed so bright after an opening-day win over British Columbia, returned to the ice Sunday morning and slid into a disaster against Nova Scotia. They were without second Liz Fyfe, who wasn’t feeling well, and struggled to find their draw weight; they gave up three straight steals and fell 9-3.

Their evening game against Ontario’s Jenn Hanna was far stronger. The Manitobans shot well and jumped early on their opponents. A couple of hard-brushed draws in the fourth end snagged Einarson three points; a miss by Hanna in the fifth earned Manitoba a steal of two.

Einarson shot a phenomenal 95 per cent through the first half, and finished at a strong 87 per cent. It wasn’t a perfect game: in the seventh, her draw came in heavy, and handed Hanna one of the stolen points back. But the Manitobans blanked the next two ends, and shook on a 5-3 final score.

That lifted them to 2-1 on the week, a fine place to be in this wide-open round robin. And after the match, Einarson had her smile back.

“I’m having a lot of fun,” Einarson said, of the whole Scotties experience. “I’m really enjoying this. I’m just enjoying the activities afterwards, or even just being out there on the ice and in front of this amazing crowd… it’s exactly what I thought it was going to be, to be honest.”

Campbell also had a rough ride Sunday, though hers ended with heavier disappointment. The Regina skip was widely seen as a potential upstart threat this week, and sealed that rep with a booming 11-7 win over Nova Scotia in her opening match. Sunday, though, her team got a splash of cold water.

‘The high yesterday of winning that game was amazing.

No better feeling than to win your first game at the Scotties’

— Saskatchewan third Ashley Howard

It had to come sooner or later.

“There a lot of highs and lows throughout the week, and that seems to be what makes it a long week,” Saskatchewan third Ashley Howard mused. “The high yesterday of winning that game was amazing. No better feeling than to win your first game at the Scotties.”

It started when Campbell dropped a 6-5 morning squeaker to Ontario, an otherwise well-curled game that slipped away when she gave up a steal on her last shot. The Saskatchewan crew returned in the afternoon for a worse disappointment, a sloppy 10-4 loss to Quebec that was sealed with a three-point steal.

Well, this is what these early days of the Scotties are for: learning the competition, getting a handle on the pressure and the ice. Campbell’s team hasn’t even played on arena ice together this season; the Saskatchewan playdowns were held in a Prince Albert curling club.

Plus, three of them are Scotties first-timers, and Campbell’s past experience came as an alternate. That could be part of the learning curve, she agreed.

“I think if you’ve been here a lot of times, there’s nothing that’s new for you really,” Campbell said. “And we’ll just build on what we learned today.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca