Jones wins sixth career Players’ Championship

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This article was published 16/04/2017 (3403 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

JENNIFER Jones will have her name inscribed on the Players’ Championship Trophy for a record sixth time.

The Winnipeg skip guided her team to an 8-4 victory over Edmonton’s Val Sweeting in the women’s final of the Grand Slam curling event Sunday night in Toronto.

It was the sixth career Players’ Championship title of Jones’ illustrious career.

Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen, meanwhile, suffered a 5-3 loss to Sweden’s Niklas Edin in the Players’ Championship men’s final Sunday afternoon.

Jones and her teammates from the St. Vital Club scored a huge count of three in the third end to grab a 5-2 lead. Sweeting scored a single point in the fourth end and then stole one in the fifth, but Jones posted a deuce in the sixth to move in front 7-4 and then closed it out with a steal of one in the seventh.

Jones, with third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn McEwen, picked up a winners’ cheque of $30,000 and also won an additional $32,500 for their placing in the Rogers Cup season standings.

Sweeting, who picked up a runner-up cheque of $24,000, was the overall Rogers Cup season champion and earned a $75,000 bonus prize.

She clinched the Grand Slam season’s top spot just by advancing to the championship game with a semifinal victory over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg on Sunday morning.

Jones defeated Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland 8-3 in the other women’s semifinal.

In the men’s championship battle, Edin broke a 3-3 tie with a steal of single point in the seventh end and then stole another in the eighth when McEwen’s game-tying draw to the four-foot came up light.

Edin earned the $30,000 champions’ cheque, but earlier cashed in $75,000 just for qualifying for the final to win the overall season title. The Edin quartet seized three Slam titled this season.

McEwen, supported by third B.J. Neufeld, second Matt Wozniak and lead Denni Neufeld, settled for the $24,000.

The Fort Rouge Club team qualified for the final by defeating reigning Canadian and world champion Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., in a semifinal game Sunday morning.

— staff