Newfoundland finds game at Scotties

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This article was published 30/01/2018 (3120 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PENTICTON, B.C. — Could it be fifth time the charm at a Scotties for Newfoundland skip Stacie Curtis?

Over the first three days of the round robin at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts national women’s curling championship, Curtis has been the biggest revelation. After four games, she is the only skip in her pool with an unbeaten record. Curtis sealed that with a Monday afternoon win over second seed Casey Scheidegger of Alberta.

Not only that, but she’s been consistent. In fact, Curtis was leading all skips in the field on Monday afternoon, with an 86 per cent shooting percentage, and made some slick hits against Alberta (3-1) to seal a 9-4 victory.

“It’s kind of a little surreal right now,” Curtis said moments after that win.

At 31, Curtis has been hoping to knock on that door for awhile. The 2006 Canadian junior champion is making her fifth Scotties appearance. Her best showing came at last year’s championship, when she went 5-6.

This year, her team set their sights higher. They hit the road more, playing bonspiels in Atlantic Canada and Ontario. Now, they hope to accumulate enough world ranking points to earn invites to some of the more marquee events.

First things first: there’s a whole lot of curling left in Penticton, and Curtis is hoping to be there at the end.

“We’re really excited with where we are,” she said. “But we’ve still got a long way to go.”

On that note, Curtis’s hot start means this morning’s game against Michelle Englot’s Team Canada is now a big one. Englot rose to 3-1 with a 13-4 win over Chelsea Duncan’s winless Yukon crew (0-3) Monday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, Englot’s fellow Manitoba-based teams, Team Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones and wild-card winner Kerri Einarson, each picked up their third Scotties wins.

Jones beat Nova Scotia’s Mary-Ann Arsenault 11-5 and Einarson trumped Saskatchewan’s Sherry Anderson 8-4, thanks in part to a ninth-end steal of three.

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Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan were both 1-2 heading into late-draw games against New Brunswick (2-1) and Yukon (0-3), respectively.

Jones and Einarson were each at 3-0 heading into the late draw on Monday night, with Jones facing the Northwest Territories’ Kerry Galusha (1-2) and Einarson taking on Northern Ontario’s Tracey Fleury (1-2). Jones improved to 4-0 with a 12-4 win against Galusha.

(Visit winnipegfreepress.com for the result of the Einarson-Fleury game, which ended after press time.)

The 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts runs through Feb. 4. The top-four teams in each round-robin pool advance to play each other in a championship round Thursday, in order to determine the weekend’s final four playoff spots.

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.