Carey wins one for grandfather

Skip hands Jones first loss

On the day one of her biggest fans was laid to rest, Chelsea Carey had a game that would have made him proud at the Canadian Olympic curling trials.

Carey’s grandfather, John Demkiw, passed away at the age of 93 on Saturday in Winnipeg and his funeral was Wednesday. At the same time, Carey was on the ice at Canadian Tire Centre against Jennifer Jones in a battle of unbeaten teams.

Soon enough, Carey was the only unbeaten team left standing after her team scored a 7-5 win over the 2014 Olympic champion.

“He was one of my biggest fans for sure,” Carey said of her grandfather. “He would have been watching, yeah. It was a tough day, but I knew he’d be there with me. I’m sad I couldn’t be at his funeral, I’m sad I can’t be with my mom. My dad and I are both here.

“He would have wanted me to be here and he would have wanted me to pour all my energy and heart and soul into that game and that’s what I did.”

Carey improved her record to 5-0 and moved closer to clinching a playoff spot. Two of her wins have come against the tournament favourites Jones and Rachel Homan, which will work in her favour if there are ties in the standings.

Jones fell to 5-1, losing for the first time in her team’s last 20 games. Homan was on the ice against Casey Scheidegger on Wednesday night, looking to join Jones at 5-1.

Carey took advantage of some rare misses by Jones, who came up light on two draws that led to a total of five stolen points.

“I don’t know that it was necessarily as well played a game as either team would have liked, but we’ll take it,” Carey said. “Those teams that you think are going to be there at the end of the week are the ones you most want to beat. If you’re tied with them, then you’ve got that one up. So that was a big one, but it feels like we still have a week left yet so we’ll enjoy this for about five minutes and then we’ll get right back to business.”

The Carey-Jones matchup featured some added intrigue because Carey’s third is Cathy Overton-Clapham, who played on the Jones team for many years and won four Canadian championships, but was dumped after the 2009-10 season.

Overton-Clapham, who certainly wasn’t happy about the move at the time, said it’s all in the past now.

“It’s just playing another four people out there and we’re just trying to get every win we can this week,” she said.

Jones said she is struggling with the line calls on tricky ice. Her speed was OK, but she’s going to need to figure out where to put the broom if her team is going to make the playoffs.

“I think we’re made of something a little bit more than just crumbling after one loss,” Jones said. “It’s hard to go through this thing undefeated but obviously, we don’t like to lose that way. It was not our best effort.”

On the men’s side, Calgary’s Kevin Koe became the first team to clinch a playoff spot. Koe ran his record to 6-0 with a 6-4 win over John Epping of Toronto.

“Our goal was six wins and we got there a little quicker than we would have anticipated,” said Koe’s third, Marc Kennedy. “That was our best game as a team and we feel pretty good.

“But we’ve all been here before. We know we haven’t won anything yet.”

Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen was in second place with a 4-1 record heading into Wednesday’s evening draw. He was on the ice for a key matchup against current world champion Brad Gushue (3-2).