Manitoba teams marching in Moose Jaw

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This article was published 18/02/2020 (2127 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MOOSE JAW, Sask. — It’s no real surprise, but both of Manitoba’s hopes at the 2020 Scotties Tournament of Hearts will be burning bright into the next round of play.

Manitoba champion Kerri Einarson and Team Wild Card skip Jennifer Jones both recorded critical wins on Tuesday night, improving their records to 5-1 and thus seizing their spots in the championship round. That round begins Thursday, where the top four teams from one pool will face the other pool’s four best.

Einarson silenced the thunderous home crowd early in her 10-6 rout of Saskatchewan’s Robyn Silvernagle. The game was essentially over in the fourth end, after two painful Silvernagle misses set the Manitoba skip up for a whopping five-ender. Silvernagle fought back, but never came close to closing the gap.

There are still three berths in Einarson’s Pool A to be decided, and the pool is every bit as jammed as it looked like it would be before the rocks even started flying. The teams with a fighting chance include Saskatchewan (4-2), Northern Ontario (3-2), Canada (3-2), Alberta (3-2) and New Brunswick (3-3).

Meanwhile, Jones hung on tight for a 9-7 extra end win over Nova Scotia’s Mary-Anne Arsenault, sealing the deal with a game-winning double takeout for a deuce. Team Wild Card hasn’t necessarily rocked through the round robin, but they have found ways to win when their backs were on the line.

In the same Pool B as Jones, Ontario’s Rachel Homan also punched her ticket to the championship round on Tuesday night, after she dispatched the Northwest Territories squad to improve to 5-1 in the standings.

That leaves just two championship berths in their pool to be decided. Among the teams still in contention are British Columbia (3-2), Prince Edward Island (3-2) and Nova Scotia (3-3).

One odd note: though Homan cruised to a 9-5, eight-end win over Northwest Territories, she should have had an even better score. At the end of the seventh end, in which Homan officially stole a deuce, an NWT player mistakenly removed the wrong Ontario rock from play; it should have counted for a third point.

That was at least the second time this week a player has removed a rock incorrectly, apparently without any players or officials noticing. Team Canada skip Chelsea Carey also did it earlier in the round robin, appearing to confuse the rock she kicked off with one that bumped the boards, though that one didn’t immediately count towards scoring.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca