Carey facing the fight of her life

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This article was published 17/02/2017 (3464 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. CATHARINES, Ont. — The red and white jacket looks good on Chelsea Carey. She chased it her whole life, ever since she was a girl watching her father win a Brier; at last year’s Scotties in Grande Prairie, Alta., she finally caught it.

Now, she’s in for the fight of her life to keep wearing it. Because at the 2017 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Carey’s proud Maple Leaf is not the most fearsome crest. For that, you have to look at the one worn by her first opponent.

Carey knows this. After the Ford Hot Shots competition Friday afternoon, a reporter from Toronto mentioned a story that suggested Ontario’s Rachel Homan, not Carey, is the team to beat. What did Carey think of that?

The Team Canada skip, never one to beat around the bush or throw sunshine where it’s shady, blinked once and answered frankly.

“They’re the number one-ranked team in the world,” she said. “That’s just a fact. It’s not my opinion. It’s just true.”

It is, and there’s no getting around it when competition kicks off at Meridian Centre, a pretty two-year-old arena on the edge of downtown St. Catharines. Carey’s first test, against Homan at 1:30 p.m. CST, will likely be the hardest.

By now, that’s sort of her tradition. At Carey’s first Scotties in 2014, as Manitoba champion, she opened with a loss to Homan; with Team Alberta last year, she beat Jennifer Jones to start. Both times, she made the 1-vs.-2 Page game.

“I like playing that game first, because you come out loose and you just see what happens,” Carey said. “If you win, great, it starts you on a good run for the week. If you lose, it’s early, it’s the first game and you’ve got so much time.”

Still, this year, the pressure of that first match points to another story. At the 2016 Scotties, Carey’s team shot fire. But it didn’t stay burning into worlds, where they went home without a medal… or, for that matter, to the 2016-17 season.

To be honest, the foursome struggled. On the World Curling Tour circuit this season, they hold an underwhelming 24-30 record. Other than an early bonspiel in Japan, which they won, they have yet to climb higher than a quarter-final.

That result, Carey agreed, is “not what we would have wanted.” Third Amy Nixon was even blunter.

“It was mediocre at best,” Nixon said. “Flashes of good, and not-so-good. It hasn’t been great. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s irrelevant at this point. We have good experience on our team. Ice looks great. It’s a new day.”

Sometimes it’s hard for teams to pinpoint why it is, that lightning escapes the bottle. In this case, Carey and Nixon both say they have a pretty good handle on why 2016-17 hasn’t lived up to last season’s glowing promise.

For one thing, the team opted to change up some of their habits — particularly how they communicated about weight.

“Rather than get into the devil in the details, and the numbers on the stopwatch, is to talk a little bit more about feel,” Nixon explained. “That’s probably the biggest difference between the team this year and last year.”

On the topic of why make the change, well, that’s the perfectionism that curlers are always chasing. The team, which is rounded out by second Jocelyn Peterman and lead Laine Peters, wasn’t thrilled with how they handled weight.

‘Rather than get into the devil in the details, and the numbers on the stopwatch, is to talk a little bit more about feel’– Amy Nixon

“We were fine with draw weight on good ice, but when the ice was tricky and patchy, we struggled to produce,” Carey said. “Then you go, ‘well, the ice is patchy, it’s tough.’ Well sure, but it is for the other team too.

“We need to be able to be better in that situation, so how do we do that?” she continued. “So came up with a new language that we think will help us in those situations a little more.”

But there’s another reason, and this one is more personal. In October, Nixon, a lawyer, was named senior advisor to the president of Calgary’s Mount Royal University. Add to that the fact she has a three-and-a-half year old at home.

“I’ll happily call myself out,” Nixon said. “I haven’t had a great year… the reality is that my mind is always full, and my time is always full. That hasn’t helped our team. That’s not the only reason, but I’m ready this week.”

In fact, Nixon said, the 39-year-old thought Grande Prairie might be her last Scotties. Then the team won Canada, and the grand slams and Continental Cup still called their siren song, and… well, here she is. For now.

“You won’t see me very long,” she said. “When my daughter gets sick, and I have to call her grandma because I can’t miss another day of work… there’s a time coming very fast, where I have to re-evaluate what’s important in my life.”

So to be at this Scotties as Team Canada is a “cherry on top” of Nixon’s unflappable career, she said. Yet the Olympic trials are just months away — and if Team Carey can catch fire again, perhaps another trip to worlds.

“I’m not saying this is the last time I’m going to play,” Nixon said, with a smile. “I’m saying my time is short.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca