Carruthers’ Olympic dream lives on

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This article was published 04/01/2018 (3033 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE — Technically, the 18-team Olympic qualifier they’ve been running all week long out here is called the 2018 Canad Inns Mixed Doubles Trials.

But you could also call it The Event that Reid Carruthers Made Possible.

Because were it not for the clutch performance of Carruthers and his former mixed doubles partner, Joanne Courtney, representing Canada at last year’s World Mixed Doubles Championship, the arena at Stride Place would have been quiet this week and the 18 teams competing to become the first to represent Canada in mixed doubles at the Winter Olympics would have been at home instead, still sleeping off that Christmas turkey.

Canada has struggled internationally in mixed doubles and this nation didn’t even have a berth in next month’s Winter Olympics until Carruthers/Courtney locked one down with a second-place finish at last year’s world mixed doubles, a performance that finally gave Canada enough points to qualify a mixed doubles team for Pyeongchang.

And so there is a certain poetic justice to the fact the man who helped make this week possible has now locked down at least a tiebreaker game for himself and his playing partner as the eight-team playoff round begins today.

Carruthers and his new partner — longtime Jennifer Jones second Jill Officer — won only one of their three games on the final day of the round robin but that was good enough to stay alive with a 5-3 round-robin record.

Carruthers/Officer were awaiting the results of the final draw of the round robin late Thursday night to find out if their record was good enough to qualify them directly for a playoff spot or if they will first need to play a tiebreaker game this morning.

Either way, Carruthers and his Olympic dream has lived on for at least one more day. Along the way, he says he’s cemented a friendship with Officer — who replaced Courtney on his mixed doubles team last month after Courtney and her women’s team, skipped by Ottawa’s Rachel Homan, won the right to represent Canada in women’s curling in South Korea.

“If we win this weekend, I’d get to go to the Olympics and experience that with Jill, which would be incredible. But whether we win or lose, we’re going to best friends at the end of this. She’s just a real standup person and I’m very lucky to have her on my team,” said Carruthers.

Meanwhile, Jones and her mixed doubles teammate, Mark Nichols, already know they’ll be in today’s playoff round, which begins at 3 p.m..

Jones/Nichols won two of their final three round-robin games Thursday to finish at 6-2, which was good enough for second in their pool behind only Jocelyn Peterman/Brett Gallant, who ran the table at a perfect 8-0.

Peterman/Gallant were one of two teams to go undefeated this week — Laura Crocker and Geoff Walker went 8-0 in the other pool. Gallant and Walker are teammates on Brad Gushue’s Newfoundland foursome.

Nichols is also on that Gushue team and along with Jones is seeking to return to the Winter Olympics, where Nichols won gold in Torino in 2006 as third for Gushue while Jones won gold skipping her team in Sochi in 2014.

“We’re really happy,” said Jones. “Our goal at the start of the week was to make playoffs. And especially because we hadn’t played mixed doubles together for a few years, we wanted to work out the kinks and I think we’ve done that.

“And now that we’re in there, who knows how the brackets are going to set up. We just really wanted to get into the playoffs and take it from there.”

Whether there would be any other teams with Manitoba connections joining Jones/Nichols and Officer/Carruthers today was still being determined late Thursday night.

Kaitlyn Lawes — the longtime third for Jones — and her teammate, John Morris, needed a win in their final round-robin game against winless Tyler Stewart and Nicole Westlund-Stewart to finish at 5-3 and force at least a tiebreaker game.

Chelsea Carey and Colin Hodgson were in the same situation, needing a win over Marliese Kasner and Dustin Kalthoff (1-6) in their final game to finish at 5-3 and force at least a tiebreaker game.

Meanwhile, the Winnipeg husband and wife duo of Mike McEwen and Dawn McEwen had a disappointing week, finishing at 2-6 and out of the playoffs.

Mike McEwen was asked whether the week took a toll on the couple off the ice as well as on it.

“No, she’s been pretty good about it,” said McEwen, laughing. “And I behaved, too.”

The playoff format being used is an eight-team double knockout beginning this afternoon that will play down to a four-team championship round, which begins Saturday afternoon.

The final is Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m.

CBC is televising the playoffs, beginning with Friday night’s 7 p.m. draw.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @PaulWiecek