Whippersnapper meets legend

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This article was published 26/01/2017 (3413 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Fifteen years ago, Jennifer Jones won her first Manitoba championship, and Christine MacKay was just six years old.

In many sports, that age divide may as well be a lifetime. But curling careers can be long, and the curling world is small, and so Wednesday afternoon put them on provincial ice together: the rising talent, and the living legend.

When they shook hands, MacKay had fallen 8-5 to Jones. But the 21-year-old Fort Rouge skip wasn’t overwhelmed, which was a kind of success of its own. She stuck around for nine full ends, and earned a deuce in the third.

It was the first time MacKay, who just finished a successful junior career, faced Jones. It may not be the last.

“We were trying to drag the game on a bit, just to keep playing them,” MacKay said. “Every end, we were like ‘OK, let’s try to get something,’ and try to play cool, because Jennifer’s super aggressive and we knew that going in.”

“We were so proud,” MacKay added. “We wanted to play 10 (ends), almost got there, so pretty good game.”

Jones didn’t have to play in the provincial playdowns last year, when MacKay made her Manitoba Scotties debut. So this is the first time the reigning Olympic champion has seen what the young skip can do, and she was impressed.

“She’s really focused, and I love that,” Jones said. “She gets in the hack, and I love that she doesn’t throw it until she’s ready. I think that will bode very well for her in the future. She’s a great judge of weight, great dynamic.”

What’s more, Jones stressed, Mac-Kay’s spirited showing is a promising sign of what’s to come for Manitoba.

After all, the first goal of the women’s provincials is to select who can best compete for a Canadian title. But it is also key the Manitoba Scotties serves as a place to identify and challenge the next generation of contenders.

On that end, 2017 is showing that there are plenty of bright spots not just now, but on the very near horizon.

When the women’s provincials roared into Beausejour last year, the crowd was charmed by a youth movement.

That group included MacKay, two-time Manitoba junior champion Shannon Birchard and Altona skip Mackenzie Zacharias, who at just 16 (her second, sister Emily, was 14) had won a berth in the women’s provincials.

Now, the youth wing of the Manitoba Scotties is back, and bigger — and make no mistake, they mean business.

In addition to return trips by Birchard and MacKay, the 2017 provincial field features skips Beth Peterson, the 2015 Manitoba junior champion, and Brianne Meilleur, who won the juniors in 2010 and 2011 as Breanne Meakin’s third.

“We’re the new up ‘n’ coming teams together, because we had a really strong junior field together,” Peterson said, of former junior rival Birchard. “I think it’ll be a crazy week, with teams beating teams who weren’t expected to win.”

Already, they are making their presence known. In her first game at Charleswood’s Eric Coy Arena, Peterson hung onto a tenacious 7-6 extra end win over perennial contender Darcy Robertson, who entered the Scotties as fifth seed.

It wasn’t a seamless game by Peterson’s team; the skip flubbed her last shot in the eighth to allow Robertson a deuce. But they responded with two of their own, then played strong to collect steals in the 10th and extra ends.

At night, Peterson settled in to deliver another surprise: thanks to a second-end deuce and a huge five-ender in the fifth, she rose 9-8 past Cathy Overton-Clapham, who is once again leading a talented young team at Scotties.

All this, and Peterson agreed they were still working through the usual case of rookie nerves. They hadn’t practiced well at Eric Coy Arena Tuesday, she thought; just full of buzz to face these opponents, and on this arena ice.

“We weren’t as focused as we hoped,” Peterson said. “I think I was just pretty in awe of everything. And the teams we were out there with were sometimes a little distracting, or just exciting to see, because usually I’m watching them.”

So what does this mean for the future of Manitoba curling? If the youth infusion was a fun talking point last year, this year it seems to be building to something even better. Call it a big restocking of the provincial curling shelves.

Bruce Birchard, a longtime junior coach and Shannon Birchard’s father, thinks this year’s Scotties field is stronger than in 2016, and not just because Jones is back in the fold. It’s a robust group through the ranks, he said.

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To Jones, now 42 years old and keenly aware of the legacy she will leave in the province, facing young teams such as MacKay’s feels important. Perhaps one of them will follow her footsteps, from Manitoba to the Olympics.

“To be honest, it’s just really incredible to see that Manitoba’s future is looking great,” she said, after shaking hands with MacKay in the early evening. “These girls are amazing. We have to be tough to beat them.”

The 2017 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts round robin continues through to Saturday morning, with playoffs to begin Saturday night. The championship final is set for 3 p.m. Sunday, and will be broadcast on Sportsnet.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

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.