Team Einarson pursuing history

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/10/2023 (953 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A better script for the 2023 Scotties Tournament of Hearts final could not have been written.

There was Team Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones — among the greatest female curlers of all time — with a chance to make history and become the first player to win seven Canadian titles.

Sharing that same sheet of ice on Feb. 26 at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops, B.C., was another team from Manitoba — the Interlake’s own Kerri Einarson — looking to leave a mark in the record book.

With a victory, Einarson, Alberta-based third Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Harris would be the first team since Nova Scotia’s Colleen Jones (2001-04) to win four consecutive national women’s championships.

Indeed, the Gimli team had high expectations when it joined forces (four skips, you’ll recall) in 2018 — but capturing four Scotties titles in a row would have been considered fiction, not reality.

Yet that’s precisely what happened.

Einarson and Co., playing with the Maple Leaf on their backs, outlasted Jones 10-4 in the Scotties final, earning the right to represent Canada at the world women’s curling championship in Sandviken, Sweden just a few weeks later.

“I find myself wondering every year like, ‘Oh, my god. Are we going to win another one?’ It just seems unreal and surreal, and kind of like a dream, because it’s such an accomplishment. We’re so fortunate to win that many Scotties and be Team Canada so many times in a row,” said Harris, in a recent interview.

“Going into that game (against Jones), we were just hoping we could be defending champs again and keep the streak going. We know it can’t go forever, but we hope every year that it will be one year longer.”

Einarson’s squad also features head coach Reid Carruthers and alternate Krysten Karwacki.

Jones, who reached the final with the help of an impressive group of 20-somethings in third Karlee Burgess, second Mackenzie Zacharias and the platoon of Lauren Lenentine and Emily Zacharias at lead, had an incredible event but ran out of steam in the final.

Incredibly, Birchard has won five Canadian crowns in the last six years.

In 2018, she was a replacement for Kaitlyn Lawes (who was away winning gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea) on a Jones squad with second Jill Officer, and lead Dawn McEwen that defeated Einarson’s wild-card foursome of Selena Njegovan, Liz Fyfe and Kristin MacCuish to win the Scotties title in Penticton, B.C.

Birchard marvels at the remarkable streak of success.

“It was amazing to win four in a row and to accomplish something that only Colleen Jones was able to do in the past with her team,” she said. “She was someone I looked up to a lot when I was a young curler just getting into the game, and to have achieved the same as her is pretty unbelievable.”

The job wasn’t done yet as the team was eager to bring home the gold from Sweden’s Goransson Arena. They had won bronze at the 2022 worlds in Prince George, B.C. but were looking to upgrade this time around.

It was their first time competing on the world stage overseas as the 2021 and ‘21 worlds were hosted by Canadian cities. The 2020 edition was cancelled due to the pandemic.

In Sweden, Einarson had an inconsistent round-robin to finish with a 7-5 record before losing 8-5 to Norway in the semifinal. Disappointed but not deterred, the Manitobans closed things out with an 8-5 victory over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg to add a second bronze medal to their collection.

Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni beat Norway’s Marianne Roervik 6-3 in the final to win her fourth straight world championship.

Einarson had edged Hasselborg in the 2022 third-place game as well.

“I know everyone always wants to bring home gold and I know I want to someday, but bringing home two bronze medals is pretty special and it’s better than bringing home nothing,” said Einarson. “I know my girls and my family cherish it and so do I. Now I have two bronze medals for my twins (10-year-olds Kamryn and Khloe) to wear. At least they’re the same.”

One of the biggest positives from the experience was the play of Harris who was pregnant with her first child and just over a month away from her due date. She didn’t miss a single game and finished with the third-best shooting percentage among leads at the 13-team tournament.

“I was really lucky that I could still play. Obviously, there were those games where I was a little more tired than what I was used to or not feeling the greatest but I just powered through,” said Harris, who gave birth to a baby boy, Hayes, on May 31.

“I wanted to be there for my teammates and wanted to keep the consistency there for them. Looking back, it was crazy to play that pregnant. I know I’m really stubborn so I’ll always play if I can. I even wanted to play in the Champions Cup at the end of the year and I had to make that decision not to. But it’s probably a good thing I didn’t because I’m pretty sure I had my son just over two weeks after they got back.”

Dawn McEwen filled in for Harris at that final Grand Slam event of the season, and the Einarson team lost the final to Rachel Homan.

Now, as the 2023-24 season unfolds, Team Einarson — the world’s No.2-ranked team behind only Tirinzoni — has a chance to own a piece of history on its own by collecting a fifth consecutive Scotties title. The 2024 championship is set for Calgary (Feb. 16-25) and the winner qualifies for the worlds in Sydney, N.S., a month later.

“A lot of people just dream about winning once and that was my dream. But now we have some goals we want to set and some goals we want to break so we’re definitely striving for that,” said Einarson.

“We don’t want to get complacent. We want to keep striving to get better and better each year. We know there are things we need to work on as a team and individually.”

Birchard, who turned 29 in May, is out to tie Jennifer Jones, Colleen Jones, and Officer for most Scotties championships with six.

“Every once in a while I think about it and just realize how grateful I am to be in the position I’m in and with the team that I have,” said Birchard. “It’s not something I’ve been able to do alone.”

Before they get there, they’re focused on starting the season on the right foot.

Einarson, Birchard and Harris, started training together in mid-August. Sweeting lives in Edmonton, and that’s where the team made its season debut at the Saville Shoot-Out in early September, qualifying for the playoffs but losing in the quarter-finals.

On Sunday, the Gimli group was in the final of the uniquely challenging PointsBet Invitational in Oakville, Ont., a 16-team, single-knockout tournament featuring Canada’s finest teams. Homan prevailed 9-7 to earn a cheque for $50,000, while Einarson’s squad took hom $26,000.

Certainly, all teams have a shelf life, but the Einarson success story seems to have no end in sight.

“We’ll be in our sixth season together which is pretty crazy to think about. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long either so I think that’s a good sign,” said Harris.

“We’re all still getting along, playing well together and having a lot of success together. It’s not easy to find a good match and a good fit for four people for that long and we’re just really lucky to have that. We still feel good and know we haven’t reached our full potential yet which is really exciting.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

X: @TaylorAllen31