Montford delivers nail-biter amidst the blowouts

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/01/2011 (5669 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ALTONA — The opening day scores — 12-1, 12-3, 10-3, 9-2, 9-4, 10-5 — screamed one obvious question:

Is it serving anyone’s interests, least of all the vanquished, to allow teams so obviously outclassed to participate every year in the Manitoba women’s curling championship?

The answer is not quite as obvious as it might appear. Because tucked amidst the bloodbath of all those blowouts here on Wednesday’s opening draws of the 2011 Scotties Tournament of Hearts was one other score — 7-6 — that perhaps spoke most loudly of all.

And what it said was that a flawed system that continues to allow lowly club curlers to compete for a provincial title is still the best system of all, warts and all.

And the reason why we know this today is because the best game of the day here at the Millennium Exhibition Centre — the one folks were talking about long after the last rock was thrown — was that 7-6 nail-biter on the 12:15 p.m. draw between Chelsea Carey and Michelle Montford.

The result was entirely predictable — a victory for Carey, a cashspiel powerhouse and the overwhelming event co-favourite, over a 22-year-old raw provincials rookie.

But the manner of Carey’s victory was what made it relevant to our discussion today. Because Carey needed to muster every bit of her curling savvy and ability to take on Montford and her young squad — and even then only won because Montford was just a bit too heavy on her last-rock draw in the tenth end and handed Carey the game-winning steal she needed to avoid opening an event she’s expected to win with a loss.

And that’s the thing, see. Because if you are one of those people who thinks declining entries and a water-thin field have made a 16-team women’s provincials a mockery, then it is teams like Montford who would likely also be eliminated from the equation — right alongside those teams who were so hopelessly drilled Wednesday — if you shortened the field to, say, eight.

Now, make no mistake, yesterday was ugly. Snow Lake’s Kelly Wiwcharuk made her provincials debut and promptly gave up a six in the first end to Joelle Brown and quit four ends later down 12-1. Two sheets over, Cathy Overton-Clapham cracked a four and then stole four more en route to a 12-3 win over Carberry’s Betty Buurma. Two draws later, Overton-Clapham stole five more en route to a 10-3 spanking of Brookdale’s Tina Kozak.

And on and on and on it went here yesterday as the anemic qualification process that gets teams to this event was laid bare for all its foibles.

Kozak, for instance, got her berth in a combined zone playdown where three teams competed for two berths. Which is not to slight Kozak. On the contrary, in fact. A mother of four and a full-time nurse, she does the best she can to curl as often as she can. But even she had to wonder yesterday about the wisdom of the system that got her here.

“I do think it needs to be a smaller field,” said Kozak. “In order for us to get better, we need to play these teams more often. But then you get to the problem that when you come from a rural area, you can’t get to those teams.”

Montford said she came into this event with the same low expectations of her team as everyone else.

“We were stoked (just to get here),” said Montford, who is playing here with her former junior team whose curling highlight prior to this was a semifinals appearance at a Manitoba juniors a few years back. “Nobody expects us to win any of our first four games. So we’re just going to go out and if we can win one or even two, we’re doing pretty good.”

Those expectations may be on the low side. And it’s those kinds of pleasant surprises — in a sport that is still at its best when it is at its most egalitarian — that makes curling so fun to watch, warts and all.

LOOSE HAIRS — Overton-Clapham, Kerri Einarson and Janet Harvey were atop their pool at 2-0 in the Black Group… Carey, Jill Thurston, Lisa Blixhavn and Karen Rosser were all 1-0 in the Red Group heading into Wednesday’s late draw.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Drawing a crowd in altona C2