Tricky ice baffles Canada at women’s worlds
Carey rink scores pair of wins despite vastly different conditions
SWIFT CURRENT, Sask — Consistency is key at any major curling tournament.
That’s true for both the teams involved and the ice they play on.
On Tuesday, though, Chelsea Carey’s Team Canada rink was left scratching their heads after winning two games on ice surfaces that couldn’t have been more different at the women’s world curling championship.
The results were exactly what Canada had been hoping for and put the home side in an awfully strong position to qualify for the playoffs. But Carey admitted that Tuesday morning’s 7-5 win over Germany and Canada’s 5-4 victory over Italy a couple hours later had taken a toll mentally.
“This morning we came up against a team that played really well and we had to be patient and wait it out,” Carey said.
“(This afternoon) it was like being in a different club. We were just really fooled by how hard we had to throw ends.”
If the Canadian team — which includes third Amy Nixon, second Jocelyn Peterman and lead Laine Peters — comes away with a gold medal at the end of the week at the women’s worlds, nobody’s going to remember the struggles along the way.
But it was still striking to see Canada needing a point in the 10th and final end to beat Italy, a team that was winless through its first six games in Saskatchewan.
Carey had been lights out against Germany, largely masking the struggles of some of her teammates. A couple hours later, she was missing big in the first end against Italy and frantically trying to figure out how hard she needed to throw her draws.
“I looked like a fool in the first end,” Carey said. “I threw it exactly how we wanted me to and I looked like an idiot because I came up 10 feet short.”
With packed houses at the Credit Union iPlex for every draw so far this week and temperatures outside that have mostly been unseasonably high, keeping consistent ice surfaces has been a huge challenge for the crew in Swift Current.
Carey was fully sympathetic to the difficulties they were facing and insisted she wasn’t throwing them under the bus, but the conditions Tuesday afternoon had largely caused her team to abandon the finesse game they usually might have relied on to beat a less-experienced rink like Italy.
“It’s tough here, it must just be the weather and the crowds,” Carey said. “I actually think with the ice the way it is, it’s much more of a mental grind than it is physical because everyone’s going to miss a ton of shots.”
The win improved Canada’s record to 6-1 and kept them tied atop the standings with Switzerland heading into Tuesday’s evening draw