Women’s curling: Canada’s Chelsea Carey says pressure not an issue ahead of 3-4 Page playoff
SWIFT CURRENT, SASK.— Chelsea Carey says she’s just going to have fun out there.
The Canadian skip will lead her Calgary-based rink against Russia’s Anna Sidorova on Saturday afternoon in the 3-4 Page playoff of the women’s curling world championship.
Carey triumphed in a do-or-die round-robin game against Scotland on Thursday night to make the play- off and said after the win that relaxing and enjoying the moment was the key to her success.
So against Russia, she’s just going to keep having fun.
“You’ve got to do what works,” said Carey after practice Friday afternoon. “Try to repeat everything that works and was a good thing and was successful — that’s what we’ll try to do.”
Carey and her teammates — third Amy Nixon, second Jocelyn Peterman and lead Laine Peters — planned to have a relaxing evening of going out to dinner, spending time with their families and getting to sleep at a reasonable hour before returning to the Credit Union iPlex on Saturday for the playoff match.
Sidorova beat Carey in their round- robin game, with Russia winning 6-3 in nine ends. Although the Russians scored four points in the final three ends of that game, Carey’s unconcerned with how that result played out.
“It’s not like we played badly. We didn’t. We lost a battle and that happens,” said Carey. “They’re a good team so you know it’s going to be a battle. We came out on the wrong end of that one but we’ll come out the right end of this one.”
Russia’s skip also likes to take each game as a new challenge, independent of previous results.
“I believe every game is a new game,” said Sidorova. “Of course you can look back, but it doesn’t mean anything. That’s why we’re looking to play our best and if we play our best we have a good chance to win.”
The winner of the 3-4 Page playoff will move on to Saturday night’s semifinal where they will face the loser of the 1-2 Page playoff between Switzerland and Japan that went Friday night.