Carey, DeCruz take Canadian Open titles
Calgary-based skip breaks through to claim her first Grand Slam victory
It was, said Chelsea Carey, perhaps the toughest field in any event in which she’s ever curled.
How it ended up with two skips in the final that had never won a Pinty’s Slam Series event before, she wasn’t sure.
‘Chelsea Carey can’t close’ had been the rap, the knock, on now Calgary-based skip — especially this year when she put together a 45-16 win-loss record.
But Sunday, with $30,000 on the line at the Meridian Canadian Open of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling, the daughter of former Brier champion Dan Carey — who won playing third for Vic Peters in 1992 — cashed in at arguably the most celebrated of all Slam events to date.
A provincial champion out of Manitoba, Carey skipped her team to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts title in 2014 in Grande Prairie and then moved to Edmonton to take over Heather Nedohin’s team that included the same front end she led to victory here — Jocelyn Peterman and Laine Peters.
Adding Winnipeg third Cathy Overton-Clapham this year, the team started to win for Carey.
But until yesterday, she couldn’t win her last game.
Carey was one win away from skipping Canada at the Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games, but lost to Rachel Homan in the final of the Roar of the Rings.
Last weekend in Medicine Hat, she made it to the playoffs of the provincials without losing a game and then lost the 1-2 game and the semifinal and headed home early.
“We finally played well in a final,” Carey enthused when it was over, moments after executing a double takeout with the final rock on the final end and made it so perfectly that she scored four to win it 10-5.
“We finally had our breakthrough. We’d been in the playoffs and the finals and hadn’t managed to get a win yet,” said Carey.
“It felt really good to make that last shot. To win my first Slam title means so much. These are the best fields we see. This is the best field I’ve ever played in. This field was so stacked.
“To be able to play against these teams in a field like that and come out on top is a huge confidence builder for us,” she said of the event that featured 11 Olympic teams.
Carey was chosen to go against Kerri Einarson of Winnipeg in a sudden-death play-in game to be the 16th team in the highly controversial new two-pool round robin, which includes teams from Nunavut and the Yukon, in addition to the Northwest Territories, as fully accredited contestants.
That game will be played Friday in Penticton, B.C.
“We wanted to feel really good about this week no matter what happened. We wanted to put together a good run and obviously that is as good a run as you can get. This is going to be as good as we can possibly feel going into that game.
“We lost to Einarson in our first game here but we feel really good about it.”
If Carey gets in, she could play Englot again.
The Regina skip took over the team of Kate Cameron, and sisters Leslie and Raunora Wescott last year and led them to the final of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
And, yes, she was cheering like crazy for Carey to lose to Homan at the Roar of the Rings Olympic Trials, because as loser of the Scotties final to Homan last year, she’d get to replace Homan as Team Canada at this year’s Scotties.
If Englot had won here, she’d have been a wonderful story.
She celebrates her 54th birthday on the trip home Monday and would finally have won a Slam.
When this season comes to a finish she’s going to retire. Quit. Call it a career.
“It’s a big loss. It would have been awesome to win a first Slam,” she said of her Winnipegbased team.
“I’m really happy with how we played going into the finals here, so we’ll just keep on building that for next week in Penticton,” she added of leaving Camrose with a cheque for $18,000.
“It’s cool to have had this success and played in this final and to be headed to the Scotties. It’s a great way to go out for me and say I had a really great career.
“Go to the Scotties as Team Canada will be the perfect ending.”