Five-player rink sweeps to provincial title
Knocks off favoured Sweeting in final to claim Alberta Scotties crown
Vegreville Val was getting used to winning this thing.
In both 2014 and ’15, Val Sweeting won Alberta and made it to the final at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts only to lose.
Last year, Sweeting and her Edmonton Saville Centre team lost the provincial final to Chelsea Carey, who went on to win it all. But Carey wasn’t here this year, having won the rights to defend her Canadian title as Team Canada.
It was all here for her in St. Albert, where her third, Lori Olson-Johns, teaches high school.
But then along came 48-year-old Cinderella Shannon Kleibrink to make her a bridesmaid again with a 6-4 win Sunday.
Despite her never-been-on-national-television teammates sailing a pair of draws through the house, Kleibrink used the hammer to hit for two on the first end.
Blanking the next two, the Okotoks skip watched Sweeting claim two of her own in the fourth and was forced to settle for one on the fifth.
Despite making a pistol of a shot with her first shot in sixth, Sweeting failed on a runback and gave up a steal of one.
Facing three in the seventh, Sweeting hit and rolled out leaving the Torino 2006 Olympic bronze medal winner with a steal of two. They eventually shook hands when Kleibrink ran her out of rocks in the 10th end.
Sweeting, who gave up a steal of one on the 10th end to lose 7-6 to Geri-Lynn Ramsay of Calgary in the A Event semi, and needed an extra end to defeat Scheidegger 7-6 in the B Event final, lost the A-B final Saturday evening with a last rock miss to lose 7-6 to Kleibrink.
“I’ve never missed so many shots before,” Sweeting said when it was over.
“In the sixth end, I had that runback for two, the ice just ran straight. We battled back but it wasn’t to be. We just didn’t have the performance we wanted and the other team played great.”
With Jennifer Jones not making it to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the loss of the defending Olympic gold medal winner dramatically devalues the star value for the Feb. 18-26 event in St. Catharines, Ont.
It was the first time since 2004 that Jones competed in the Manitoba championship and didn’t win it.
A six-time titlist and Team Canada bye winner five times, which meant she wasn’t required to compete, she’s been the team to beat just about every year.
While the fate of Rachel Homan remains to be determined in Ontario, the rest of the field qualified to date includes: Marla Mallet (B.C.), Penny Baker (Saskatchewan), Michelle Englot (Manitoba), Krista McCarville (Northern Ontario) Eve Belisle (Quebec), Melissa Adams (New Brunswick), Mary Mattatall, (Nova Scotia), Stacie Curtis of Newfoundland, Sarah Koltun (Yukon), Kerry Galusha (N.W.T.) and Geneva Chislett (Nunavut).
You have to figure that list dramatically increases the odds for an Alberta team to win the thing.
With defending champion Carey winning it last year and returning as Team Canada and Kleibrink joining her from Alberta this year, there’s the best chance ever, perhaps, to create the never-happened-before possibility of two Alberta teams in the final? Wouldn’t that be something? When two-time Scotties champion Heather Nedohin retired prior to last season, it was Carey who took over her team and went all the way to the world championships with it.
Monday morning, when Kleibrink suffered a back injury, she immediately phoned Nedohin and conscripted her as the team fifth.
Nedohin skipped two of the first three games for her Wednesday and Thursday.