Team Canada taking hard road — again

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/03/2009 (6256 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GANGNEUNG, South Korea — An evening trip to a local masseuse seemed to work wonders for Team Canada’s Jennifer Jones this morning at the World Women’s Curling Championship.

After suffering a frustrating loss to Denmark’s Angelina Jensen Wednesday afternoon, Jones, third Cathy Overton-Clapham and second Jill Officer — lead Dawn Askin took a pass — headed downtown for a little R and R.

It paid off this morning as a relaxed Team Canada turned back Diana Gaspari of Italy 8-5 at the Gangneung International Ice Rink to clinch a berth in the playoffs.

A win later today against Switzerland’s Mirjam Ott, combined with a loss from either Bingyu Wang of China (9-1) or Denmark (7-2) would sew up a spot in the Page playoff one versus two game, set for either Friday or Saturday depending on TV demands and tiebreakers.

"The goal is to make the playoffs; we were pretty disappointed after losing that game to Denmark (Wednesday) night, and now we want to end the round robin with a big win," said Jones.

"We had to come out and win this game. I was quite disappointed, but we bounced back and we’re still in there. You just have to make the playoffs."

For the record, a massage in Korea isn’t like the ones Jones gets back home.

"It was definitely different than a Canadian massage," said the smiling Canadian skip, who’s chasing back-to-back world championships. "It can’t be explained, only experienced. I don’t know, they kind of have their body on you, they’re stretching you. And fully clothed. Both of us. We had our translator in there saying, ‘OK, not so hard.’ "

On Wednesday, Canada had to work hard just to earn a split. Jones needed to draw to bite a piece of the button to score a 10th-end deuce for a 7-6 win over South Korea’s Mi-Yeon Kim.

Then later in the day, Jones skipped an ideal game, setting herself up to have last rock in the 10th end of a tied game, only to let that 10th end get away from here as Denmark stole two for a 7-5 victory.

"We just didn’t execute," said Jones. "We’ll have to play better. This wasn’t our best day. We’re making some big shots; just not as consistent as we’d like to be."

Canada had to scrap its way back from a 5-2 deficit to beat an inspired Korean team on home ice, then, to be blunt, gave one away to the Danes, who obviously enjoy curling in Asia; two years ago, they made the gold-medal final in Aomori, Japan, losing to Canada’s Kelly Scott.

Jones called a risky shot for Overton-Clapham in the 10th end, trying to play a short-raise takeout instead of peeling a centre guard — a call that Denmark’s last-rock thrower Madeleine Dupont said afterwards surprised her.

Still, Jones had a chance to bail out but couldn’t bury a draw behind the centre guard, and when Dupont made the nose hit, Jones could only attempt (and miss) a tough angle-raise takeout for the win, that even stunned Dupont.

"That felt really good," said the ecstatic Dane. "It looked so bad in the 10th end; I don’t know how it turned out that way. It looked so bad that at one point I thought we might as well shake hands. It was amazing. I think it was one miss on their side and that was it."

TSN will be televising the semifinal on Saturday (5 a.m., live) and the final (6 p.m., tape-delay); the final will be shown live on TSN2 at 1 a.m. Sunday.

— CanWest News Service

 

Standings

(Following Draw 14)

W L

China (Wang) 8 1

Canada (Jones) 7 2

Denmark (Jensen) 7 2

Sweden (Norberg) 6 3

Switzerland (Ott) 5 4

Germany (Schopp) 4 5

Russia (Privivkova) 4 5

Scotland (Muirhead) 4 5

U.S. (McCormick) 4 5

South Korea (Kim) 3 6

Italy (Gaspari) 1 8

Norway (Rorvik) 1 8

 

Wednesday Results

Canada 7 South Korea 6

Denmark 7 Canada 5

 

Thursday Games

Canada vs. Italy (late)

Canada vs. Switzerland (6 a.m. CT)