JONES EAGER TO TAKE ON WORLD
Manitoba skip in North Bay trying to win her second global curling crown
In many respects, Jennifer Jones is in for her most challenging week as the reigning queen of Canadian curling.
The competition in the 13-team field at the 2018 Ford World Women’s Curling Championship, which begins this afternoon at North Bay’s Memorial Gardens, will be tremendous. Included is Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg and South Korea’s Eunjung Kim, who won gold and silver respectively at the Pyeongchang Olympics last month.
It will be after a longer than normal break since Jones and her Manitoba team won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts for a record-tying sixth time Feb. 4 in Penticton.
And it will be the last big international event she plays with her second of 23 years, Jill Officer, who is stepping away from the team after this season.
“We’re really excited we have the opportunity to wear the Maple Leaf one more time with Jill, and to experience it with her,” Jones said after Friday’s practice with her team, which also includes lead Dawn McEwen, third Kaitlyn Lawes and alternate Shannon Birchard, who filled in as third at the Scotties while Lawes was in Pyeongchang winning a mixed doubles gold with John Morris.
“Obviously, we’ll miss her. We love her to death, but right now it’s just all about enjoying the excitement of the event.”
Canada will not dip a toe but cannonball into the pool today with games against the Czech Republic at 11 a.m. and Switzerland five hours later. Swiss skip Binia Feltscher has won gold in her last two trips to Canada to play in the world championships.
For Jones, the approach is simple.
“You’ve got to win more than you lose and hopefully you don’t lose too many back-to-back, and really just try to get into the playoffs,” he said.
Ah yes, the playoffs. With the addition of a team from the Pacific-Asia region, the Page format has been altered to a six-team straight knockout setup Jones sounds less than thrilled about.
“We’ll wait to see how it unfolds,” she said.
“It’s new, so ... I’ve never been a fan of being eliminated without tiebreakers, so we’ll see how it goes.”
Canada will be looking to win its second consecutive global title after Rachel Homan’s rink became the first to sweep its way through the 2017 event in Beijing. But the world championships have not always gone Jones’ way.
In five trips, she has one gold (2008, Vernon) and one bronze (2010, Swift Current, Sask.). Jones remembers both fondly. “In Vernon, it was our first world championships in Canada and it was one of the best events we’ve ever played in, in terms of fan support and the whole experience,” she said.
“Obviously, standing on top of the podium was pretty special. That and Swift Current were both tremendous. Vernon just worked out a little better for us.”
It looked like such might not be the case after Jones lost a round robin game to China then trailed the U.S. 6-1 after four ends before a rally gave Canada a 10-9 win. Jones finished the week 11-3. “It was really a tough competition, for sure,” she said. “We had a really tough semifinal and it went down to the wire.”
Just the way a true competitor likes it.
“It’s always a grind, but that’s kind of why you play, isn’t it?” Jones said. “It’s tough. The teams around the world have been really good for a decade. I know a lot of people are talking about it right now, but you see how many teams from different countries have won the world championships over the last 10 years. In women’s curling, the world championship has been one of the toughest events to win for a very long time now.”
Jones likes her team’s chances this week, especially playing on home ice. She was pleasantly surprised to see about 100 fans come out to watch practice Friday.
“We’re feeling pretty good, we’ve been practising hard,” Jones said. “We’ve had a really good season. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a very good Olympic trials, but other than that we’ve had a really good season. We’ve played fairly consistent.
“We’ve had a little bit of time off, which we’re not used to. Hopefully, the rust will not be there for very long and we’ll start getting in the groove.” dbrennan@postmedia.com
In women’s curling, the world championship has been one of the toughest events to win for a very long time now.