Stellar field for Scotties

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This article was published 23/01/2020 (2283 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There has never been a Manitoba women’s provincial quite like this, the teams agree. Not one that’s so crowded, so top-loaded with talent. The field has always been deep, but this year, getting to the top looks like scaling a mountain.

Just look at the top three seeds that will lead the 2020 Scotties Tournament of Hearts when it kicks off in tiny Rivers next week. They’re not only the best in Manitoba. They are also the top three in the entire country this season, as ranked by Curling Canada’s points system, and in the same order.

In first place is defending Manitoba champion Tracy Fleury, who rides into provincials on the back of a phenomenal season on the World Curling Tour. Right behind her is Kerri Einarson, the longtime Manitoba hotshot on the hunt for her second buffalo jacket and looking to avenge last year’s final loss to Fleury.

Coming in at third seed: oh, no big deal, just a certain six-time Canadian champion named Jennifer Jones.

It’s a heck of a lineup, arguably the most daunting Manitoba women’s field of all time. It’s basically a mini-grand slam. Unlike some years, where the No. 1 seed has been far ahead of the pack, there will be no space to breathe for the top teams in Rivers: they’ll have to play sharp, to have any chance to win.

“It’s really competitive,” said Einarson second Shannon Birchard, at a news conference Wednesday to unveil the seeds. “You go down the line of teams and it’s hard to find anybody you’d consider weak. Any of the teams there could get on a hot streak, and give any team a good run, regardless of how they’re seeded.”

What is more is that the “big three,” as they’re being dubbed, are far from the only ones with a shot to take it. Look further down the 12-team field, and there are a number of dark horse contenders who will be jostling to play spoiler.

Beth Peterson could do it, for instance. At age 25, the fourth seed is still something of an up-and-comer; she put up a feisty performance in the 2019 provincials before falling out in a tiebreak heartbreaker. And her team of third Jenna Loder, second Katherine Doerksen and lead Melissa Gordon has made strides this season.

“We’re very confident,” Peterson said. “We’ve been working really hard… and we had a really good season. We played teams that have beat the big three, and we’ve beat the big three in past seasons. So I think we shouldn’t expect to be blown out by any means, and definitely look forward to playing spoiler.”

Still, anyone making odds this year would have to toss the best ones to Team Fleury. In their second year together, the East St. Paul team has soared to a 49-20 record on the World Curling Tour. They won their first grand slam title, the Masters, in October, and in December they battled to the final of the elite Canada Cup.

“It’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what it is, but I think just the second year together, we’re just so much more comfortable, and we’re just all able to perform our best this year,” said second Liz Fyfe. “Everything has just come together nicely, which is a really good feeling, so we’re feeling really confident and excited.”

That said, there’s one stat that shows just how much of a coin-flip the Manitoba Scotties could be. In five meetings with Jones this season, Fleury has won three; against Einarson, the record stands at 2-2. So while Fleury certainly has the edge going into Rivers, they’re the first to know it’s far from a guarantee.

What they are guaranteed, though, is at least two chances to make the national draw — and either Einarson or Jones will get a second chance, too. Since 2018, the Scotties Tournament of Hearts has featured a wild-card berth, claimed via a play-in game between the two top-ranked teams who didn’t win their province or territory.

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Right now, Fleury is No. 1 in Canada. Einarson is second, and Jones is sitting at No. 3. Nobody else can catch them in the rankings between now and the Scotties, so the wild-card game will be two of Manitoba’s own big three. And that means that, once again, there will be two local teams in the national hunt.

A similar situation happened two years ago, when Jones won Manitoba and Einarson earned the first-ever wild-card spot. Einarson also qualified for the wild-card match at the 2019 Scotties, though she lost that one in a squeaker to Alberta’s Casey Scheidegger.

So one way or another, Team Fleury’s Maple Leaf chase won’t end in Rivers next week. Neither, quite likely, will Einarson’s or Jones’. But while it’s nice to know they have options, they aren’t taking their eyes off the big prize.

“We want to wear the buffalo, that’s our main goal,” Fyfe said. “It’s nice to have the fallback of the wild card, possibly, but that’s not what we’re thinking about this week. We want to go in winning this week, so that’s our goal.”

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.