SWEETING SAVOURS SUCCESS
Golden day for Sask.-born curler
MOOSE JAW Val Sweeting has finally consigned the Scotties Tournament of Heartbreaks to the past.
After suffering losses in the Canadian women’s curling championship’s gold-medal match as the skip of Team Alberta in 2014 and 2015, the Saskatchewan-born Sweeting savoured the opposite end of the spectrum Sunday at Mosaic Place.
Kerri Einarson’s Manitoba foursome — with Sweeting playing third — registered an 8-7, extra-end victory over Ontario’s Rachel Homan to advance to the world championship, slated for March 14-22 in Prince George, B.C.
“It means so much,” Sweeting said following the Scotties Tournament of Hearts’ closing ceremonies. “It’s just an honour to be Team Canada. I’ve had quite a few heartbreaking Canadian final losses, so I definitely needed that.”
But she could have done without the extra stress in the latter ends.
Einarson, Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Meilleur led 6-2 after eight ends, only to watch Homan — a threetime national champion — register deuces in the ninth and 10th to force an extra session.
In the 10th, Einarson had an opportunity to draw for the win, but her shot was heavy and Homan stole two. At that point, was Sweeting thinking, here we go again?
“No,” she responded. “Maybe for a second, I just kind of thought, ‘Oh, that sucks.’ I knew that we’d regroup and have a really strong 11 and ultimately just leave it to the skip.”
With another opportunity to count one with the hammer, Einarson was unerring in the 11th and therefore became a Scotties champion for the first time.
“Kerri was just playing amazing all week, especially through playoffs and in our last games, and you know that she’s going to be close,” Sweeting said. “The girls are so good at brushing and really own those positions. I had total faith in that last end.”
Meilleur and Birchard both curled at 93 per cent in the final. Einarson operated at 82-per-cent efficiency. After an erratic start, Sweeting registered a percentage of 83.
“I struggled in the first couple of ends, but I made some after that,” Sweeting said with a smile. “I joked, ‘Sorry, I thought it was an eight-end game. I showed up a little late.’
“The girls stuck with me and made some really good shots.”
Sweeting stuck with curling despite some disappointments in previous finals, and was richly rewarded on Sunday.
“There were some dark days, for sure, and you wonder how you keep going,” she said. “You just keep pushing and you work really hard and you kind of tell yourself that one day it will pay off.
“It’s just like the cliches, but you really wonder, will it? It did today, so it feels really good.”
She said it felt especially good to win a title in her home province.
Sweeting grew up on a farm between Maryfield and Fairlight, near the Manitoba border.
She moved with her family to Vegreville, Alta., when she was 13. She returned to Saskatchewan after graduating from high school, attending the University of Saskatchewan for two years.
“Saskatchewan is kind of a home for me,” said Sweeting, 32, who lives in Edmonton. “I know I have Manitoba on my back this week, but I’m fortunate to have lived in some different areas with lots of support.
“Maryfield, Vegreville … they were all supporting us, as well as Manitoba and everybody back there. Although I had the Manitoba logo on, I felt like I was kind of representing everybody and I felt that support from everybody.”
Sweeting was eligible to play for Manitoba because Curling Canada allows one out-of-province player per team.
The logistics of representing Manitoba while living in Alberta can present some issues, but Sweeting has dealt with greater challenges en route to making a long-awaited appearance at the top of the podium at the Scotties.
“I’m very proud of myself, but I owe a lot to my teammates as well,” she said. “We worked really hard together.
“I think they wanted that a lot for me, but I wanted it a lot for them, too. It’s really special.”