Einarson game postponed

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This article was published 20/02/2021 (1928 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kerri Einarson can’t seem to get around postponements and cancellations.

The Team Canada skip and her teammates were preparing to meet Northwest Territories at the Scotties national women’s championship in Calgary when Curling Canada informed them the Saturday afternoon game was off.

An unnamed player on Kerry Galusha’s crew from Yellowknife fell ill inside the Scotties bubble, although medical staff believe it was food poisoning.

The rest of the N.W.T. team showed no similar symptoms, and all had tested negative on previous COVID-19 tests (as recently as Friday). The ill player receive another test for the virus Saturday.

As a precaution, the game was rescheduled to Monday at 9:30 a.m.

“We were a little concerned, just worried that it was something COVID-related but it wasn’t, thankfully,” said Einarson, who opened Friday night with a win over Altona’s Mackenzie Zacharias. “We’re just glad everyone’s OK.

“It just seems to be the way things have been happening with us. It’s becoming normal where thing get thrown at us and we’re like, ‘OK, we’ll adjust to it.’ It’s something we’ve gotten used to.”

Nearly a year ago, the 2020 Scotties titleists were already in Prince George, B.C., preparing for the world championship, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut it down — just 48 hours before the first rocks were to be tossed.

Then, in mid-November, Einarson, third Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Meilleur were on the ice against Edmonton’s Kelsey Rocque at a cash bonspiel in Okotoks, Alta., when the event was abruptly halted, owing to restrictions put in place by Alberta Health Services as virus cases spiked in that province.

“Yes, we definitely do (get cancelled a lot),” she said. “It’s one of those things that just seems to happen to us.”

Golden anniversary

Jennifer Jones and Kaitlyn Lawes celebrated a very special anniversary Saturday.

The dynamic duo captured gold on Feb. 20, 2014 at the Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia after defeating Sweden in the women’s curling final on winter sports’ biggest stage.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years already,” said Lawes on Saturday morning.

She’s still throwing third rocks for Jones as they form one half of Team Manitoba at the Scotties. One of the favourites of the event, Jones posted a 7-4 victory over Quebec .

“You know, this year I kind of forgot about it but it does usually come up in some memories. So, you always remember. But it just seems like being in the bubble I don’t even know what day it is today,” joked Jones. “Thank you for the reminder. It’s definitely a great memory.”

Lawes won a second Olympic gold medal in mixed doubles with teammate John Morris in PyeongChang, South Korea in 2018.

Welcome to the Bigs

The 2020 world junior champions are, indeed, off to a tough start in their Scotties debut.

The Zacharias foursome, the second wild-card team, fell to 0-2 after suffering a 7-5 loss to Alberta on Saturday afternoon, capped off by a terrific 10th-end double-takeout by skip Laura Walker to remove any chance for the young skip to tie the score.

A seventh-end miss by the 21-year-old University of Manitoba student — a hit for four that resulted in only a single — proved costly.

Zacharias meets Yukon on Sunday night.

Meanwhile, Beth Peterson of Winnipeg was upended 9-4 by Ontario’s Rachel Homan on the afternoon draw.

Peterson, also a wild-card entry, is now 1-1 and meets Team Canada and Nova Scotia on Sunday.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell