WE’LL NEVER SEE ANOTHER CURLER LIKE JENNIFER JONES
SIX-TIME CANADIAN CHAMP CAME UP A WIN SHORT TO CLOSING CAREER WITH ONE MORE TITLE
If you ever had to pick a couple things to define the unmatched curling career of Jennifer Jones, they would likely be her undying love of the game and ability to appreciate the big moments in real time.
Jones simply enjoys everything about the game and always seems to find a way to make sure that is her priority, whether it be in an early season curling club event or the final of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
She loves winning, too, and has done plenty of it, but it has never been just about that. It’s more about the thrill of competition, strategy, shotmaking, the “smell of the ice,” the atmosphere in the curling venue and the buzz of the fans in the stands.
It’s that intense love of the game that endeared her so much to the fans, made her as popular as any curler on the planet.
Even on Sunday, as she continued a magical run at what seems destined to be her final Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Jones seemed to be channelling the young girl who fell in love with the game decades ago at the St. Vital Curling Club.
“I just want to soak it all in,” the Manitoba skip said before taking on Ontario’s Rachel Homan in the Scotties final at Calgary’s Winsport Events Centre.
“The crowd’s been awesome. I just really want to enjoy it. I’ve never not enjoyed playing, so I don’t see playing in the final being any different.
“I just think it’s fun to be in the final. My last one, so ... yeah ... it’s fun to be in those big games.”
At the age of 49 and having won everything there is to be won in curling, Jones announced before this year’s Scotties that she intends to retire from the women’s game at the end of the season.
Then she went out and looked anything but done during the tournament, leading her team to a 6-2 record and a pair of playoff wins on the way to the final.
Still, while she has written one of the great stories in the history of curling, this one didn’t have a fairy-tale ending.
Along with teammates Karlee Burgess, Emily Zacharias and Lauren Lenentine, Jones had a chance to win her record seventh Scotties title and finish her career as the skip of Team Canada.
But it didn’t turn out that way, with Homan completing a perfect Scotties and knocking Jones off by a score of 5-4 in a matchup of true curling superstars.
There were some uncharacteristic misses by Jones during a 12-7 semifinal win over fellow Winnipegger Kate Cameron on Sunday afternoon, and she didn’t have her best game against Homan — in fact the execution by her whole team just wasn’t there — but Jones showed all week that she has plenty of game, and plenty of passion for the game, left in her system.
“All Scotties have been great, but this one’s been pretty awesome,” said Jones, who was playing in her 16th Canadian women’s curling championship.
“So I don’t think that I could’ve scripted it any better.”
She certainly did enough to set up one last epic final against Homan, who came into the game with a 10-0 record in this Scotties and a 475 mark overall this season. How perfect was that? Jones, the greatest curler of a generation, against Homan, who has never been far behind and is having perhaps her finest season.
Homan, 34, is now a fourtime champion and has years to build on her legacy, as does four-time champion Kerri Einarson, but at the moment few people would disagree that Jones is the GOAT of women’s curling.
We know Jones isn’t retiring because she’s no longer relevant in the women’s game. Judging from this week, she could easily continue to contend for Scotties titles with the right teammates.
But she’s also been travelling the country and the world for much of the last 25 years and now she wants to make sure she has more time for her daughters, 11-yearold Isabella and seven-yearold Skyla.
It’s great news for her girls, not so great for the fans of curling.
At least those fans got a chance to say a proper goodbye, with Jones hanging in at the Scotties until the very last draw.
She certainly knows how to make an exit. Like so much else in her storied career, it was simply great, despite the final score of her last Scotties final.
There may one day be another women’s curler who wins more Scotties titles, more world championships, more Olympic gold medals, more career games or as many hearts among the fans.
Maybe someone will one day do better than The Shot that she made in 2005 to win the Scotties, one TSN consistently touts as the greatest curling shot of all time.
But there will never be another Jennifer Jones.
As sports figures go, she is the complete package, and her presence as a player at the Scotties will be never be forgotten.