Jones not giving up on Olympic quest just yet

MOOSE JAW, SASK. Jennifer Jones won’t win a record seventh Canadian women’s curling championship this year, but don’t get the idea she’s going away.

Jones lost 8-3 to Ontario’s Rachel Homan in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts semifinal on Sunday morning, dropping Team Wild Card out of contention for the curling crown.

But the 45-year-old skip and her Winnipeg teammates Kaitlyn Lawes, Jocelyn Peterman and Dawn Mcewen see themselves as a rink heading in the right direction.

“The big picture is still trying to get to Beijing 2022 and that’s still a few years away right now,” Lawes said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do but I think we’re willing to put in that work.

“We were joking earlier that we have over 100 years of experience on the ice amongst the four players, which is pretty crazy to think. There’s always learning opportunities and I do think you learn the most from your losses. We’ll take this one into the memory bank and figure out what we need to do differently going forward.”

Jones beat fellow Manitoban Tracy Fleury in the wild card game on Feb. 14 and went 9-2 in the round robin before losing 6-4 to Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson on Saturday night.

That dropped Team Wild Card into the semifinal, where it was not able to match the consistency of three-time Canadian champion Homan and her teammates from Ottawa. Still, Jones was feeling positive despite the loss.

“I’m really happy with our season,” she said. “We worked on a lot of things and I feel like they’re all coming together and we’re really trending in the right direction, which I love. I’m having a ton of fun and I’m feeling really good about where we’re at.”

Jones and her teammates performed much better this year than they did at the 2019 Scotties in Sydney, N.S., where they missed the playoffs as Team Canada.

“Way better,” said Jones, a twotime world champion and Olympic gold medallist.

“It’s always terrible to lose but at least we gave ourselves a chance this year. We struggled with the ice last year and it was much better this year. It’s always better to leave an event when you’ve played well.”

After a year in which Jones lost the Manitoba final to Einarson and finished behind Einarson and Homan at the Scotties, the veteran skip remains optimistic.

“I just love playing with these girls,” said Jones, who remains tied with Colleen Jones for the most Scotties titles (six).

“You always think about it winning another Canadian championship, every time you step on the ice. Not even about winning a record seven, just winning and representing Canada.”

Despite a great record, the Jones team didn’t exactly curl flawlessly this week. Jones was sixth among skips in curling 75 per cent for the week, Lawes was fourth among thirds at 80 per cent, Peterman was eighth among seconds at 79 per cent and Mcewen was sixth among leads at 86 per cent.

Overall, they were eighth in team curling percentage at 80 per cent.

“The disappointing part is we know we’re better than that,” Lawes said.