Fleury defeats Einarson 13-7 to take provincial curling championship

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This article was published 27/01/2019 (2416 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GIMLI, Man. — She came from half a nation away to compete for Manitoba, brought here by a close-knit team that needed a skip like just her. Someone calm, and experienced, and steady. Someone who could shoot for the moon.

And it was a gamble for Sudbury, Ont. skip Tracy Fleury to take those reins, trading away the Northern Ontario playdowns which she’d long contended, entering the fray of the most talent-jammed curling province in Canada.

She never doubted the move, though. From the time she signed on to call the shots for East St. Paul-based third Selena Njegovan, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish, Fleury believed their new union would be worth it.

Turns out, she was right. Because on Sunday afternoon, in front of a packed crowd at Gimli Recreation Complex, Team Fleury scrapped out a comeback that stunned everyone watching, and sent fans across the nation buzzing.

When it was over, Fleury had defeated top seed and Gimli hometown hero Kerri Einarson in nine ends, with a final score of 13-7. And her first-year rink was wearing the buffalo jacket: the new Manitoba women’s curling champions.

“It’s hard to put into words,” MacCuish said, as bagpipes and drums serenaded the win. “I don’t think it’s exactly set in yet. Having to fight our way back in that game was really hard but we stuck in there and it definitely feels really good.”

It was the sort of match-up that curling writers dream of. For five years, Einarson had led the trio of Njegovan, Fyfe and MacCuish; looking for a change, skip and team had mutually agreed to part ways after the end of last season.

The trio picked up Fleury, a three-time provincial champion, to lead them. Einarson assembled a crew of hot-shot skips for the new Olympic quad, including third Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Meilleur.

So there was history there, and maybe a little tension, though Einarson and her former team said it was no different than any other opponent. (“It happens all the time in curling,” Fyfe said, with a shrug. “You gotta get used to it.”)

Going in, there were high hopes for a good tilt. Both Page playoff games the night before had been beauties, as Einarson beat Abby Ackland in the 3-vs-4 match and Fleury bested Darcy Robertson in a thrilling 1-vs-2 shootout.

But for awhile, the final looked like it would be over almost as soon as it began. Because in just the second end, Einarson pounced on Team Fleury’s mistakes with surgical precision, scoring a walloping five to take a 5-1 lead.

In the aftermath of that disaster, Fleury — who is, her teammates say, almost unflappably cheerful — was undaunted.

“It’s still early,” she told them. “Let’s get two here, and fight our way back.”

Incredibly, that’s just what they did. A Fleury deuce in the third closed the gap; they held Einarson to a force in four. Just before the break, the shooter on Einarson’s last throw slid too far, leaving Fleury a draw for three and a 6-6 tie.

“We just sat down and said, ‘we’re tied now, it’s a five-end game, so let’s have the best five ends of our life here,'” Njegovan said, and though the back half of the game was far from perfect on either side, that plan worked out.

Because in the sixth, it all fell apart for Einarson. Fleury played the end out right, lying two rocks buried on the center line. Einarson’s hammer draw sat too soon, and no amount of sweeping could save it; Fleury snagged a steal of two.

From there on out, Einarson could never catch her. There were fine shots and misses by both sides, but Einarson’s mistakes were the most costly. The teams shook in the ninth, after two missed draws handed Fleury a steal of three.

It was an emotional finale, on all sides of the ice. For Fleury second Fyfe, zipping up her second buffalo jacket brought up the memory of her father, 1992 Brier champ Vic Peters. He died in 2016, the year she won her first.

“The last time that I was (Manitoba champion), my dad was here,” Fyfe said, blinking back tears. “That’s a little bit hard, when I think about that part. But it’s just amazing to be following in his footsteps. He won it three times, and this is my second time, and it feels awesome.”

So, one more to go for Fyfe, then? “And hopefully maybe a couple more after that too,” she said with a laugh.

Einarson too was letting go of grief she’d quietly borne throughout this week. Her paternal grandfather died on the first day of the round robin; a close friend of hers, a curling fan she knew from work, also died during the Scotties.

“She loved curling,” Einarson said of her friend. “All of her family was here all week supporting me, even though they’re going through a tough time. And I just really want them to know that I was thinking of them as well.”

Now, Einarson’s maple leaf quest is not over. She will be at the national Scotties in Sydney, N.S. for one game at least, if not longer: as number-two skip on the Canadian rankings, she is guaranteed a spot in the wild card game.

That’s the same game she won last year, when the wild card berth made its debut. The black jacket of Team Wild Card suited her well at that Scotties: she wore it all the way to the final. The crowd loved her. Maybe they will again.

“We’ve had a great season to get ourselves into that (wild card) position,” Einarson said. “So that’s all that we could ask for, we get a second chance.”

If she does win the wild card game, that would — for the second year in a row — mean there will be three Manitoba-based teams at Scotties next month. Reigning world champion Jennifer Jones already has a spot as Team Canada.

So that’s a wrap on the 2019 provincial women’s curling championship. It was a Scotties which saw youthful teams rising, as Beth Peterson and Scotties rookie Abby Ackland both made a spirited push into the top of the standings.

And it was one in which, on the other end of a curler’s career arc, saw veteran Darcy Robertson once again on the march. Her buffalo hunt ended in the semifinal, where she struggled against Einarson, but her season isn’t over.

This week, Robertson’s team is headed to Sweden, where they will compete for Canada in the World Cup. It’ll be the first time the skip has curled in Europe, and with a maple leaf on her jacket, so that’s one bucket-list item to check off.

After that, the foursome’s future spans bright. This has been a breakout season for the team, and a renaissance year for Robertson herself: after over 30 years, and a few Manitoba titles, it seems her curling career is just getting started.

“I’d love my team to be able to go to a Scotties,” she said, after the semifinal loss. “Hopefully one year we’ll do that.”

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The province’s top women’s curlers are going back to Westman: during the intermission of Sunday’s final, officials announced that the 2020 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts will land in the small community of Rivers, Man.

This will be the first time that Rivers, which is located 40 kilometres northwest of Brandon, has hosted the provincial women’s championship. Recently, it hosted the 2016 Manitoba junior tournament, and will host this year’s seniors.

 

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca