Eight is more than enough

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This article was published 22/01/2015 (4155 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINKLER — In just the first game of her quest for the 2015 Manitoba curling championship jacket, Kerri Einarson quite literally made every rock count.

On Wednesday, Einarson became the first skip in Manitoba Scotties history to score eight in a single end.

It’s already one of the rarest achievements in high-level competition. What made the feat even more remarkable isn’t just that the Einarson team laid eight counters against Dauphin’s Tiffany McLean — it was also that, in the fateful eighth end of that noon start, McLean held the hammer.

That’s right, Einarson flat-out stole the eight-ender to claim the game, 16-3.

The skip first started thinking the eight was a possibility, after third Selena Kaatz lodged two in the house. But it took a miss by McLean to seal the deal: she was looking to send her hammer on a simple tap to score one, but it caught the side of one of Einarson’s rocks, then ricocheted to the back edge of the 12-foot. That left the house an unbroken sea of yellow handles.

“I’ve never laid eight before,” Einarson said. “It’s pretty cool… This is my very first. I had a draw for eight once, but I gassed it.”

It was a wild finish, but the East St. Paul skip planned for only a brief and very muted celebration. “We’ll take a few minutes, then move on to the next game,” Einarson said. “That’s all that matters, moving forward. The eight just happens, and we’ve got lots of other games to go. Hopefully, we can keep curling well.”

It does seem as if Einarson, Kaatz, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish have a knack for making headlines on the provincial stage. Last year, in just their first season together, they stunned the field by blazing undefeated through the Manitoba Scotties to the final, where they fell to Chelsea Carey.

But they’ve had a so-so season thus far, and are seeded seventh in Winkler. In a way that’s a blessing, to play free of the weight of high expectations.

“My head’s clear of last year,” Einarson said. “Last year was an unbelievable year, but this is a new year. Got to play hard and play tough. There are a lot of great teams.”

Evidently, fans agree. Although Wednesday was only the first day of round-robin play, with the marquee matchups still a couple of days away, the Winkler arena was buzzing from morning until night. About 700 people turned out to watch Jennifer Jones in the 4 p.m. draw and the morning and mid-afternoon games were also well attended.

Meanwhile, beyond Einarson’s big steal, there weren’t too many surprises on the sheet. Through the Asham Group’s first two games, Jones, Fort Rouge’s Darcy Robertson, and Assiniboine Memorial skips Barb Spencer and Michelle Montford were all undefeated.

Keep an eye on that last one. This is Montford’s fifth Scotties — though just her second year with this exact team — and she entered as fifth seed.

But they’ve been on fire this season, qualifying for playoffs in six of their seven bonspiels and winning the Manitoba Curling Tour title. Indeed, several competitors around the provincials said they think Montford, third Lisa Deriviere, second Sara Van Walleghem and lead Sarah Neufeld could be poised to make a deep run.

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“I would absolutely agree with that,” Montford said, after beating Snow Lake’s Kelly Wiwcharuk 9-2 early Wednesday night. “I think we’ve had a really, really good season coming into this one, probably one of our best yet. We’ve really geared ourselves to peak at these provincials. Hopefully we can do that going forward. When we play good, we play really good, so hopefully we can get there.”

So what’s the difference this year, that has brought Team Montford that kind of confidence? Really, the skip said, it’s just experience.

“Coming into here, I don’t think anyone’s really too worried about looking stupid on the ice anymore, as you were in your first couple Scotties,” she laughed. “I think that makes a big difference, that we’re just ready to play as good as we can.”

Meanwhile, in the Extreme Force group, second-seeded Jill Thurston beat Neepawa’s Tina Kozak 9-4, while Kristy McDonald survived a challenge from Winkler’s Kaileigh Strath, stealing one in the 10th to claim a 9-6 victory. Joelle Brown also eked out a win over veteran Janet Harvey to go up 1-0 on the week. Their second games of the day began at 8:15, and were expected to continue past press time. The round robin will continue through Saturday, with the page playoffs set to begin on Saturday evening

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.