Bronze win will be last for Carey’s third Nixon

Team Canada’s Chelsea Carey goes home from the Canadian women’s curling championship with a bronze medal and a vacancy on her team.

Third Amy Nixon said Sunday’s 7-4 win over Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville for bronze was the last game of her career at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

Nixon, 39, won the 2016 Canadian title with Carey and an Olympic bronze medal in 2006 with Shannon Kleibrink. She’s competed in six Canadian championships as vice for both Kleibrink and Carey.

“I’ve known for awhile this year that it’s just not a possibility for me to maintain what I’ve tried to do in the game,” Nixon said.

“I still love to compete and I love those girls, but I don’t like the grind anymore. I don’t have the fire for it. There’s other things that call on my time. I’d rather go skiing with my family and I’d rather bake cookies. I have a great job that I really enjoy and my career is taking off in a really productive way.”

Nixon’s announcement was sudden. She acknowledged she hadn’t talked to her teammates about her decision, so Carey wasn’t yet thinking about a replacement.

“We haven’t even talked about that yet, to be honest,” Carey said. “She’s mentioned it. She hadn’t formally told me that.”

Nixon, a lawyer, is married with a three-year old daughter and is a senior adviser to the president of Mount Royal University in Calgary.

“Amy’s a special player, for sure,” Carey said. “She’s played so much third and she does it so well and knows what it takes from a shooting perspective, but more than that from a team management perspective. “Managing skips is not necessarily the easiest thing and she’s very good at it.”