Carey to skip for Fleury’s team at Scotties

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This article was published 01/02/2021 (1686 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chelsea Carey is returning to her curling roots for a limited engagement.

The former Winnipegger and 2014 Manitoba women’s champion will skip Tracy Fleury’s East St. Paul foursome at the upcoming Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Calgary, the city Carey calls home.

Fleury, who lives in Sudbury, Ont., will forgo the 2021 national playdowns to care for her seven-month-old daughter, Nina, who has a medical condition.

Speaking on the weekend, Carey said she was honoured when asked to fill in — joining third Selena Njegovan, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish, all Winnipeggers — and will devote everything she has to her temporary responsibilities.

“My heart hurts for Tracy, to be going through what she’s going through and not being able to join the team, so I wish I was just going to be sitting on the bench and she was playing,” said Carey. “But it’s very understandable. Family comes first.

“To step into a team that’s had the kind of success they’ve had, I’ll just try not to mess it up.”

The Scotties will be the first of six events staged in a “bubble” format owing to the COVID-19 pandemic at WinSport Arena at Canada Olympic Park. Spectators will not allowed inside, and participants will adhere to strict health guidelines to maintain the safety of players, officials, event staff and broadcast crews.

Remarkably, the team is one of five hailing from Manitoba preparing to compete in the Alberta hub.

Defending provincial and Canadian champion Kerri Einarson of Gimli and 2020 Manitoba runner-up Jennifer Jones of St. Vital are also heading west, as are a pair of wild-card teams, Mackenzie Zacharias of Altona and Beth Peterson of Assiniboine Memorial in Winnipeg.

Fleury told the Free Press playing in what would have been her fifth national Scotties wasn’t a consideration.

“Nina has been diagnosed with infantile spasms, a rare form of epilepsy. She started having seizures back in November and was hospitalized for eight days in Sudbury in November,” said Fleury. “She’s receiving treatment, so, fortunately, she’s been seizure free since November. At the moment, she’s starting to feel good and is back to her happy, smiley self.

“It wasn’t really much of a decision. Family’s first right now. She’s on medication and one of her treatments makes her immunocompromised and there’s still a lot of unknowns about her condition. It’s not the time to be travelling right now. It’s still scary times, but we’re taking it one day at a time and just enjoying her smiles.

“I’m really grateful to Chelsea for stepping in and really giving me some peace of mind back home, knowing the girls are in good hands and will have a good leader in Calgary,” she added.

Team Fleury team earned the top Scotties wild-card spot by way of its No. 2 spot on the Canadian Team Ranking System, accepting Curling Canada’s official invitation Monday. It’s perched below only Einarson on the CTRS and is third on the World Curling Federation rankings, behind only No.1-ranked Anna Hasselborg of Sweden and the provincial rival from the Interlake.

Njegovan said her customary skip has the team’s unwavering love and support.

“We care about Tracy and her family so much, and we just told her not to worry about curling. The main priority is Nina, and we just hope Nina keeps doing better and things can get back to normal soon,” she said.

Carey, the daughter of former Brier champion Dan Carey, learned to curl at the Granite Club and developed into one of the province’s finest players, capturing a provincial title seven years ago while playing out of Fort Rouge.

She moved to Calgary in time for the 2015-16 season and immediately found success, winning a pair of Alberta and Canadian crowns (2016, 2019) with two different teams.

But her most recent crew disbanded last March, following the exits of third Sarah Wilkes, lead Rachel Brown and second Dana Ferguson. Carey has been a free agent ever since but practised regularly until Alberta clubs were forced to close in December.

She agreed to be the fifth player for Team Fleury some time ago; however, her duties have now greatly expanded.

“Initially, we didn’t know if Tracy would be going into the bubble or not, and would I be involved with them regardless. I didn’t think I was going to play. Obviously, that changed and I was caught off-guard a bit,” Carey said. “It’s a team that I really like, I’ve always gotten along with them and they’re really good at curling.

“I wish Tracy could play. It’s not the kind of circumstances where you want to play. But I’m glad I’m able to help them.”

Carey’s job to call the shots and deliver the final two each end could last beyond the Canadian championship. The Scotties winner earns a spot at the 2021 world women’s championship, still scheduled for March 20-28 in Switzerland.

But the group isn’t gazing too far into the future, focusing solely on the 18-team challenge ahead.

“We’ve known Chelsea as a person and a curler for a long time, and we’ve had a ton of (virtual) meetings since we decided to play together for the Scotties, doing some team building, and she fits in seamlessly,” Njegovan said.

“We met (Saturday), all of us, Tracy included, and I got off the call and, honestly, I was just excited. Obviously, this bubble is going to be different but I think we’re all pretty excited to get back on the ice. We’ve been waiting a long time for this. It’s really just two weeks away before we curl with Chelsea and do something we all love.”

Fleury was recruited nearly three years ago to join Njegovan, Fyfe and MacCuish when Einarson departed to form a new foursome. During its first season together, Team Fleury emerged as 2019 provincial champion, upending Einarson, coincidentally, in Gimli.

The quartet’s success reached a crescendo with a lucrative victory in October 2019 at the Masters, a Grand Slam of Curling tour event featuring many of the curling world’s finest teams, and Fleury has been stockpiling CTRS points since.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell