Jones step closer to Olys

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This article was published 05/12/2011 (5282 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CRANBROOK, B.C. — Jennifer Jones took the first step toward her Olympic goal on Sunday, winning the Canada Cup of Curling and clinching a berth in the Canadian Olympic trials.

The Winnipeg skip beat Morden’s Chelsea Carey 9-4 in eight ends on Sunday to clinch the $26,000 first prize at the Canada Cup.

Jones, a four-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts champion has never represented Canada at the Olympic Games. She’ll have home ice advantage in two years as Winnipeg will play host to the Canadian qualifying bonspiel in December, 2013.

Alberta’s Kevin Martin downed Glenn Howard of Coldwater, Ont., Sunday to win the men’s berth.

Steals in the first two ends gave Jones an early lead and Carey and her young rink, were unable to recover. Carey briefly stopped the bleeding with a single in the third, but a three-spot from Jones and the fourth and another steal of one in the fifth sealed the win.

“They were just a little bit off early and we got the lead, but they’re a great team and I’m sure they’ll bounce back,” said Jones. “But I thought we came out and played well from the first end on, and everybody made my job easy. It was a fun game to play.

“Honestly, it wasn’t about the trials or the money. It was just about playing well together as a team, and I think we did that today, and all week.”

Carey finally got her deuce in the eighth, but by then it was too late. She still left with $16,000 and big-game experience on arena ice. Calgary’s Shannon Kleibrink was third and won $10,000.

The Jones foursome (third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Joelle Sabourin — in her last event filling in for the pregnant Jill Officer — and lead Dawn Askin), barely scraped into the playoffs late Friday night, then simply put on a curling clinic in the playoffs, knocking out Calgary’s Shannon Kleibrink in Saturday’s semifinal before taking down Carey.

Jones badly outplayed Carey, and forced the issue early, stealing single points in the first and second ends to nullify Carey’s last-rock advantage, and then taking control by scoring three in the fifth end.

Carey, on the other hand, heads back to Manitoba hoping to rebound from Sunday’s loss in time for the provincial championship next month.

“Nice national TV debut. You get your ass handed to you,” said Carey. “It is what it is, and we’ll learn from it and go from there.”

After Martin’s Edmonton rink had triumphed, third John Morris had one simple question for his skip: “Well, now what do we do for two years?”

It’s a pleasant dilemma.

The victory was worth $26,000, which is always nice — but it also carried the plum of direct entry into the trials in Winnipeg. Now, Martin’s half-Edmonton (second Marc Kennedy also hails from the provincial capital), half-Calgary (Morris and lead Ben Hebert) have 24 months to prepare for the biggest, most important event in Canadian curling.

Which produced Morris’s post-game question, and, as it turned out, his answer.

“Well, we work harder than we’ve ever worked before. It’s always possible,” said Morris, whose team is looking for a second straight Olympic gold medal after prevailing in Vancouver in 2010. “We have to find a way. We’ve always been a motivated bunch, and I think we have a lot of big events still to come. It’s just the motivation to win Briers, to win Grand Slams, to be the top money-winner — those are the things that will motivate us, and we always have them. We can’t slack off. Now’s the time to really get ‘er done.”

Howard, who pocketed the runner-up cheque of $16,000, hung tough in a bid to repeat as Canada Cup champion (he beat Martin in last year’s final at Medicine Hat, Alta.), the issue was, in essence, decided early.

“We had a lot of real close calls, and Kevin… he came through again. It’s sounding very familiar,” said an exasperated Howard, who’s lost eight of his past 10 games to Martin, including the 2009 Olympic trials final. “I thought we outplayed him for five ends and he was up a couple. “It’s frustrating, because he’s got us. He’s got us a lot. We throw an odd (win in there), but he gets us more than we get him. They’re an unreal team, they make a ton of shots.

“Give them credit, they played well.”

— from the wire services