Jones rink rocks worlds’ round robin segment
Canada had very little to lose on Friday, the final day of round robin play at the World Women’s Curling Championship. Everything is on the line now. After clinching a top-two finish Thursday night, skip Jennifer Jones led her team into a morning draw against Japan that resulted in an 8-5 victory and sealed top seed for the Canadians. With it, comes the grand prize of first-end hammer or rocks in the rest of their remaining games.
In a meaningless night game against the Americans, Team Jones scored another 8-5 victory to finish at 12-0.
When all the dust had settled, Saturday’s schedule was set with qualification games featuring South Korea-U.S. and RussiaCzech Republic.
Sweden will play in one semifinal at 2 p.m. while Canada hosts the lowest seed of qualification game winners at 7 p.m.
“You always have to try and up it a notch, so we’ll have to play a little bit better (Saturday),” said Jones.
“We know everybody is going to bring their best game and we’ll have to be as sharp as we can to have the opportunity to play in the final.”
The Canadians were without second Jill Officer for the Japan game. She also came out of Thursday match with Italy early.
“Yeah, she has blisters,” said Canada coach Elaine Dagg-Jackson, “but that doesn’t stop her.”
Officer played against the Americans.
A Saturday loss would still leave Canada with a shot at bronze on Sunday morning, but at this point anything less than gold would be a disappointment.
“Yay,” Jones said after locking down first. “You start off the week always just wanting to make the playoffs and then the week is going on, and you’re like, OK, let’s try to make that semi. To be ranked No. 1 is nice.”
Jones said the rocks have been “fairly good” at Memorial Gardens this week, which means she’ll take hammer Saturday. With that is a slight advantage.
“You get to set the tone in a game (but) I don’t think it’s essential,” she said. “It’s nice to be able to set the tone. And having hammer always gives you the ability to see how the game starts off. We always like having hammer.”
Canada’s 25th consecutive world championship win, dating back to Rachel’s Homan’s clean sweep in Beijing last year, established a new record for the event. Combined with the national men’s team, it also extended Canada’s streak of world championship wins to 42 games.
The question now is, did Canada suffer any type of mental let up after playing a pair of games that had no real ramifications? And if so, can the flip now be switched back on?
“Everybody deals with that in a different personal manner,” said Dagg-Jackson. “These athletes are very independent in their ability to prepare for the game, get ready for the game. Probably each one of them approaches a big playoff game a little differently than they do in a round-robin game, when it doesn’t matter if you win or lose. You don’t want to do that, but it’s not like you’re putting any demands on yourself, that it has to be a performance peak.
“It’s more about staying loose and staying ready. It’s not like they’re trying to go out and not play their best, because they’re always trying to do that. But I think you just have a little bit different kind of determination, when it really matters, when it really counts.”
Also worth following is Officer’s status. She was capably replaced by alternate Shannon Birchard, who filled in as third for the team at the Scotties last month while Kaitlyn Lawes was preparing for the Olympic mixed doubles competition. But the stakes now are higher.
“You have to take it rock by rock,” said the 23-year old Birchard. “The girls were super great about keeping me in the present, and not looking too far ahead, in the Scotties. So I think if it comes to that, they would do the same for me on Saturday.”
Meanwhile, Jones put a “pretty good” label on the team’s first 11 games of the worlds.
“I feel like we’ve adapted well to the ice,” she said. “We’ve been OK with making a few mistakes in order to make better shots later on. And we’re making big shots when we have to, so that’s really what winning is all about.”