Northern lights
Nunavut upsets Quebec to mark first win at Scotties Tournament
A team of women from a remote territory which has about as many residents as some other provinces have curlers produced a moment that will last a lifetime on the opening day of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
On Saturday, four players from Nunavut made history, winning a game in the Canadian women’s curling championship for the first time.
Jenine Bodner’s Iqaluit foursome beat Quebec (Gabrielle Lavoie) 4-3 on the opening draw at Centre 200 and it meant more to the curlers than anyone who lives outside of Nunavut can possibly understand.
“Amazing … I’m still in shock,” Nunavut skip Jenine Bodner said.
“We want to prove that we deserve to be here. This means so much for us to represent our territory and it means a whole other thing for us to be able to win for our territory and all the people cheering back home.”
Nunavut was added to the Scotties in 2016 but didn’t get through the pre-qualifying events that year or in 2017. Last year, Nunavut was a full participant for the first time and went 0-8, with Amie Shackleton skipping. The team was outscored 83-27 in the eight games.
The expectations weren’t much better this year, but Bodner, who throws second stones and her teammates Jennifer Blaney (fourth), Allison Griffin (third) and lead Sadie Pinksen came in on a mission to at least get that one win.
Now they’re 1-0.
“I knew we could do it but to actually get it under our belts is another story,” Bodner said. “I’m so excited that this happened and we want to keep the ball rolling. It was just figuring out the ice and playing the hit game. It worked well for us.”
Nunavut’s opponent on Saturday was inexperienced and struggled badly.
Team Quebec is made up of four junior players between the ages of 17 and 20. Their first moment on the big stage did not go well.
Lavoie called a conservative
I knew we could do it ... I’m so excited that this happened. Jenine Bodner
game in order to hold onto the hammer, blanking ends six through nine, but appeared to have very little grasp on the ice when it came down to making her shots in the 10th end with the score tied 3-3.
Lavoie’s first draw attempt was heavy and on her last rock, facing five Nunavut stones, she hit and rolled too far, leading to a steal of one.
“Our objective was to have a better percentage with our team,” Lavoie, 20, said. “It’s just, it’s our first game, so we need to try to know the ice better, try to do our best. We did pretty well except for some of the shots we missed that cost us the game, but mostly it was good.”
It was clearly not the start the team wanted but Lavoie and her teammates did manage to win the Quebec provincial women’s title, even after losing out at its junior provincials.
“We’re still a junior team, so we were playing mostly junior competition this year,” Lavoie said. “For our provincial junior, it didn’t end up the way we wanted it to. We finished third. Then we had the women’s provincial. We played really great curling all week and we won the tournament, so here we are.”
It won’t be easy for Nunavut or Quebec the rest of the way. They are in a pool that includes 2017 world champion Rachel Homan, 2016 Canadian champion Chelsea Carey and strong teams from Manitoba (Tracy Fleury) and Northern Ontario (Krista McCarville).
But you get the impression both have already accomplished more than they expected this year — Quebec just by being here, Nunavut by being in the win column so quickly.
“We call ourselves the Little Nunavut That Could and we got a win,” Bodner said.
“Due to the cost of travelling anywhere in Nunavut, a lot of our family and friends can’t physically be here but we know that our phones, our Facebook, everywhere is blowing up. The support from across Canada for our territory has been amazing. We’ve gotten shout-outs and everybody has been so friendly to us.”