National Post (National Edition)
Ice conditions throw some rinks
Mild Ottawa weather brings frosty headaches
Participants in the Canadian Olympic curling trials woke up Tuesday morning to see it was rainy and unseasonably warm outside and immediately knew that was going to be problem.
Sure enough, the increased humidity and 10C temperatures led to frosty conditions on the sheets of ice at the Canadian Tire Centre and made life miserable for curlers — some more than others.
“That’s not what you want to see,” Winnipeg skip Mike McEwen said. “It’s never a good thing when it’s raining outside and you’ve got to go curl. We made a pretty good educated guess that it was going to be different today before we got to the rink.”
The changing ice conditions didn’t slow down some of the front-runners in the tournament to decide Canada’s representatives for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Kevin Koe of Calgary beat McEwen 6-5 on a last-rock draw in the 10th end to remain in top spot in the men’s standings at 5-0, while Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg stole one in the 10th end and another one in the extra end to beat Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta., 8-7 and stay atop the women’s standings at 5-0.
Chelsea Carey of Calgary hammered Allison Flaxey of Toronto 9-3 to remain close to Jones at 4-0, while McEwen remains second in the men’s standings with a 3-1 record.
“We got fortunate to win that one,” Jones said. “We lost the ice a little bit late in the game. I didn’t play well enough. I’ll have to be better.”
Jones didn’t even get her last rock in the extra end in the right place as it rubbed a guard and was sitting mostly open in the eight-foot. However, Scheidegger was unable to capitalize, coming in too tight with her takeout and crashing on the guard.
“We’re finding ways to win,” said Jones, the 2014 Olympic champion. “We never give up. We are going to put as much pressure on everybody as we can. The ice was tricky in the end so we wanted to make her have to make a shot and fortunately for us we just missed it and we got away with a steal.”
Carey and Jones will meet Wednesday afternoon in a battle of unbeaten teams.
Carey should be good and refreshed after having more than 24 hours off between her Tuesday morning game and the Wednesday matchup.
“It’s that time in the week where you don’t mind a break,” Carey said. “It’s harder when you wait all day to play a game, but it’s not so bad when you play in the morning and have the rest of the day off. It’s nice and leisurely.”
Ottawa’s Rachel Homan, who is very much in the playoff mix at 3-1, was on the ice Tuesday night against Flaxey.
On the men’s side, Koe is looking a clear favourite, winning close game after close game. “It’s nice to win another close one against one of the front-runners,” he said of the win over McEwen. “Every win out there is so tough, so you just want to keep going.
“I don’t even know where everyone is in the standings. What is it? Tuesday? I don’t even know what day it is but it’s still early and there’s a long way to go still.”
It was a bad day for 2014 men’s Olympic champion Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. His team lost its handle on the ice conditions and blew a big lead to lose 8-6 to Steve Laycock of Saskatoon. Jacobs scored four in the first end and was up 5-1 after three, but let it slip away to fall to 2-2.
“We just kept missing shots, man,” Jacobs said. “Just look at the scoreboard. It was an absolutely ridiculous scoreboard. They got caught early due to ice conditions and we got caught late due to ice conditions.”
Jacobs was clearly frustrated by the frosty ice.
“It was bad, real bad, today,” he said. “It was not anywhere close to what we’ve been playing on the last few days and obviously that can be attributed to some of the moisture outside. It was really frosty, really slow, really unpredictable and it’s just unfortunate that the weather is giving us that.”
The forecast for Wednesday is for a mix of sun and cloud and a high of 0 C, so that should help the ice conditions. In a tournament so stacked with many of the best curlers in the world, that will be truly welcome news.