Jones beats Kleibrink to win Canadian women’s curling championship

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This article was published 24/02/2008 (6773 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA – Facing elimination five days before the final, Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones ran the table with eight straight wins to capture the Canadian women’s curling championship.

Manitoba stole a point in the 10th and final end of Sunday’s final to defeat Alberta’s Shannon Kleibrink 6-4.

Jones had a 3-4 record last Tuesday.

“We just needed our foot in the door and once the playoffs start, you start fresh, and we were playing really well come the playoffs,” Jones said. “You’ve got to peak at the end of the week and we were definitely peaking.

“We felt good at 3-4. I know you guys don’t believe that, but we did,” she told reporters.

Jones, third Cathy Overton-Clapham, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn Askin will represent Canada at women’s world championship March 22-30 in Vernon, B.C.

Jones, Overton-Clapham, Officer and curling television analyst Cathy Gauthier won a Canadian title in 2005 and fourth at the world championship that year. Askin joined Manitoba last year.

The 2005 world championship in Paisley, Scotland, marked the first time in over a decade and a half that the women’s championship was played separately from the men’s.

It lacked some important details of a world championship.

The ice melted one day and forced the postponement of a morning draw. There were no time clocks available until the playoffs.

So Jones was anticipating Vernon, where she expects to have all the trappings of a world championship.

“We’re just beside ourselves,” Jones said.

Alberta and Manitoba each earned $15,500 each for making the final, but the treasure trove that goes to the winner was substantial.

The Jones rink will return to the 2009 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Victoria as Team Canada so, unlike the rest of the field, they won’t have to win a provincial championship to get there.

They’ll receive $144,000 in Sport Canada funding over the next two years. Jones will play in the Continental Cup against the Europeans later this year and the 2009 Canada Cup.

Also, Jones became the first to qualify for the eight-team women’s field for the Olympic trials in 2009. One of the avenues to do so is winning three major events over three seasons from 2007 to 2009.

Jones won both the Canada Cup and the Players’ Championship last year so Sunday’s victory completed the set.

“We just want to fine-tune and figure out how to always play our best and that’s the key to any team’s success,” Jones said.

Manitoba won its last four games of the round robin to finish 7-4 and get into a tiebreaker game against Newfoundland and Labrador.

A 6-3 win in the tiebreaker to secure the final playoff berth, a 6-5 win over Quebec in the playoff game between the third and fourth seeds, a stolen point in an extra end to beat Ontario’s Sherry Middaugh 9-8 in the semifinal, and the St. Vital Curling Club team out of Winnipeg catapulted into the final.

Overton-Clapham, playing in her fourth career final, was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

Battling a sore knee, she’d struggled in Saturday’s semifinal. But Overton-Clapham was on her game Sunday. She outcurled Alberta counterpart Amy Nixon, the first all-star team third, 89 per cent to 74 per cent.

“I knew I had to play well (because) Amy was having a great week,” Overton-Clapham said. “I didn’t want to have any regrets after the game and saying I didn’t have a good game.”

Alberta finished first in the round robin at 10-1 and beat Ontario in the playoff game between the top two seeds 8-7 in an extra end.

Kleibrink, the Olympic bronze medallist in 2006, hadn’t made the playoffs the two previous times she’d skipped Alberta at nationals, but she seemed to have the team of destiny this year.

But while Kleibrink and Nixon won the Olympic trials together in 2005 and, subsequently, the bronze medal, Manitoba had more experience in national finals with two appearances in the previous three years.

“We weren’t nervous at all this morning,” Jones said. “I think that comes from experience.”

Alberta struggled to get the upper hand in the final, even in ends where they had the hammer.

Nixon, who had been razor sharp throughout the tournament, was off her game for nine ends until she executed a stellar triple takeout in the 10th.

There was also miscommunication on sweeping calls between Kleibrink and Nixon and front end Bronwen Saunders and lead Chelsey Bell.

In the 10th end Jones buried a draw behind one of her own centre guards with her final shot.

Kleibrink attempted a double takeout for the win, but ran the guard back onto Manitoba’s shot stone and rolled wide to give up the stolen point.

“We thought we were in a good position if I made my last one,” said Kleibrink. “We had a great week and did everything we could. Sometimes it doesn’t work out.”

Jones’s walk-off, in-off shot to score four and win the 2005 Scotties in St. John’s, Nfld., ranks among dramatic moments in the sport. Coincidentally, Askin played lead for the Ontario team that Jones beat that year.

But the tension building as Kleibrink’s final shot approached the house Sunday capped an entertaining playoff round at this tournament.

“I compare ’05 to a bottom-of-the-ninth, two out and you hit a grand slam,” Jones said. “This one was more bases loaded and you strike somebody out.”

Note(at) – Total attendance for the 2008 Scotties Tournament of Hearts was 97,617 for an average of 5,170 per draw in a 6,000 seat building, which put the tournament fourth all-time in attendance since’82.