Spencer’s big guns blazing

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This article was published 07/01/2010 (6038 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KILLARNEY — It was as obvious as a right cross to the chops — the champ is back and she’s got that eye-of-the-tiger look again.

Yes, a number of storylines began to percolate on the opening day of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts provincial women’s curling championship here at the Shamrock Centre, but none bigger than the performance of defending champion Barb Spencer and her Fort-Rouge foursome.

Spencer & Co., the defending champion and No. 1 seed here, opened with two 10-4 victories on Day 1, pummelling Liz Park of the Wheat City Curling Club in Brandon in the morning and Terry Ursel of Plumas in the afternoon draw.

And with that the champs moved to the top of the Black Group pool at 2-0 along with fellow Fort-Rouge clubmate Joelle Brown and Wildewood’s Karen Fallis.

"We’re really happy with Day 1," said Spencer, supported by third Darcy Robertson, second Vanessa Foster and lead Barb Enright. "We came out and played strong — certainly not our best, but you don’t want to play your best at the beginning of the week, it’s at the end of the week you want to be performing.

"We wanted to be 2-0 at the end of the day because the teams are going to get on to the ice and it’s going to get tougher as the week goes on. Hopefully we get stronger as well and make the playoffs."

A couple of factors are at play in fuelling Spencer’s desire: the chance to wear Manitoba’s colours for a fourth time at the national Scotties and the hunger to erase the memories of last year’s 2-9 record in Victoria.

Maybe that explains why, despite being billeted in a beautiful home on a golf course here, Spencer’s team isn’t exactly working on getting away from it all when the curling brooms are packed away at the end of the day.

No, it’s all curling all the time.

Pulling together

"We’re here to curl, we’re here to try and defend our title and we’re playing well and everybody’s just pulling together… it seems to be coming together," said Spencer.

"We try to get loose and talk about the game. Sure, we probably could go watch a movie, but there’s always that curling in the background that everybody’s talking about and thinking about. We all have the same goal. We’ve all been here before and we really want to defend our title so we’re doing everything we can to try and win this."

Meanwhile, the Red Group pool features four unbeaten squads after the late-night draw, pushed back because of the opening ceremonies. No. 2 seed Janet Harvey and her Assiniboine Memorial is 2-0 along with Chelsea Carey of Morden, Lisa Blixhavn of Brandon and Jill Thurston of Deer Lodge.

One of the other intriguing Day 1 developments was the work of Kaileigh Strath and her squad based out of Winkler. Strath, a Scotties rookie, won her first game 7-5 over Kim Link of East St. Paul before falling 10-6 in an extra end to Fort Rouge’s Joelle Brown.

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"It was really exciting out there and cool to be the last game (in the morning draw) and the closest one, too, which made it more intense," said Strath. "We’re right in with the feel now. It feels awesome. We got the nerves out and we’re just playing our best now.

"It’s a huge confidence booster for us because everyone on our team can see that we can do it. Now we just have to take that to our next games."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca