Team Manitoba skip Jennifer Jones after her final match at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, in Calgary, on Feb. 25.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Jennifer Jones bid a reluctant goodbye to a curling stage where she’s performed brilliantly in her career.
Her Manitoba team’s exit in Sunday’s 5-4 loss to Rachel Homan in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts final marked the end of an era in women’s curling.
The 49-year-old from Winnipeg declared before the Canadian women’s championship in Calgary that her 18th appearance was her last.
Jones intends to retire from team curling after this season, although she will continue to curl mixed doubles competitively with her husband Brent Laing.
Tied for the most Canadian curling titles with Colleen Jones at six and the only woman to skip an unbeaten team in an Olympic Games, two-time world champion Jones dominates debate over who is the country’s best female curler of all time.
Her 11 appearances in Hearts’ finals, 39 career playoff games and 236 games played are all tournament records.
Jones stood in the centre of the home-end rings and acknowledged the standing ovation she received Sunday night from a sold-out crowd of 3,195 at WinSport Event Centre.
“I’m going to miss everybody,” Jones said. “I love the game. I love being out here. I love what it’s done for our daughters. They believe that anything is possible because of curling.”
Jones is arguably leaving still at the top of her game. She showcased her catalogue of shots in Calgary with several precise draws, finesse hits and rolls and runbacks to score multiple points in an end.
But draw weight eluded her Sunday, which was lethal against Homan’s team that excels in defending with big-hit weights.
Jones’ walk-off deflection off an Ontario stone well outside the rings for a takeout on the button to win her first Hearts in 2005 is still in heavy rotation on curling highlight reels.
“As far as I’m concerned, she’s put modern day women’s curling on the map,” said four-time men’s world champion Glenn Howard, who coached Jones this season.
“She’s been a force for 20 some years now. Her uncanny ability to make the big shot is what sticks in my mind. She just comes through clutch, clutch after clutch. She’s a winner.”
Competing at the level of curling she has requires travelling to almost-weekly tournaments across Canada in the winter.
Jones has said she wants to be physically in the room more with young daughters Isabella and Skyla, instead of story time and spelling homework conducted virtually via a screen.
It may have been the emotion of the moment, but Jones left the door open a crack to unretire.
“This moment, it’s really hard to say goodbye to be honest,” Jones said. “I’m just like loving it. I don’t want my kids to look back on life and think that their mum was never front-row centre cheering them on, like my mum was for me.
“So that’s the biggest reason, but they keep asking me to change my mind, so we’ll see.”
Jones won her half-dozen Canadian crowns between 2005 and 2018 after making her Hearts debut in 2002 in Brandon, Man.
Jones, Kaitlyn Lawes, Jill Officer and Dawn McEwen went undefeated at 11-0 to win a 2014 Olympic gold medal in Sochi, Russia. That foursome also won a world title in 2018 in North Bay, Ont.
Jones won her first world championship in 2008 in Vernon, B.C., with front end of Officer and McEwen and third Cathy Overton-Clapham. Jones’ teams won Canada’s Olympic women’s trials in both 2013 and 2021.
“A really fierce competitor. I’ve been playing against her for a long time,” said Hearts bronze medallist Kate Cameron, who lost 12-7 to Jones in Sunday’ semifinal.
“Growing up curling in Manitoba, I think she just shaped what a lot of athletes wanted to be.”
After representing Canada at the Olympic Games a second time in Beijing and finishing fifth, her team disbanded and Jones took over a young team of women almost half her age.
Jones reached the 2023 Canadian final with them in Kamloops, B.C., where she lost to Kerri Einarson and led them to the final again in Calgary.
Karlee Burgess, Emily Zacharias and Lauren Lenentine all under the age of 25 – and Emily’s sister Mackenzie who played for Jones last season – had Jones to accelerate them through the competitive gap young curlers experience upon graduation from the junior ranks.
“We are lucky to have this opportunity to play in Jenn’s last Scotties,” Burgess said during the tournament. “Not a lot of people get to play with Jenn Jones.”
Seven years after winning her last Canadian women’s curling championship, Rachel Homan is a Scotties Tournament of Hearts champion again. Her team defeated six-time champion Jennifer Jones 5-4 in Jones’s last game at the national women’s championship.
NEW YORK – Toronto Blue Jays reliever Chad Green and Canadian slugger Tyler O’Neill of the Boston Red Sox were named finalists for the Major League Baseball Players’ Association’s American League comeback player award on Monday.
Chicago White Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet was the other nominee.
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani and Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. were named player of the year finalists.
The award winners, selected via player voting, will be named Saturday before Game 2 of the World Series.
Green, who missed most of the 2022 and ’23 seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery, was a high-leverage option for the Blue Jays this past season and filled in at closer over the second half of the campaign.
The right-hander converted his first 16 save opportunities and finished the year with a 4-6 record, 17 saves and a 3.21 earned-run average over 53 appearances.
O’Neill, a native of Burnaby, B.C., also endured back-to-back injury-plagued seasons in ’22 and ’23.
After being traded to the Red Sox in the off-season, O’Neill set an MLB record by hitting a homer in his fifth straight Opening Day. He finished with 31 homers on the year and had an OPS of .847.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
NEW YORK – Florida Panthers centre Sam Reinhart was named NHL first star of the week on Monday after leading all players with nine points over four games last week.
Reinhart had four goals, five assists and a plus-seven rating to help the Stanley Cup champions post a 3-0-1 record on the week and move into first place in the Atlantic Division.
New York Rangers left-winger Artemi Panarin took the second star and Minnesota Wild goaltenderFilip Gustavsson was the third star.
Panarin had eight points (4-4) over three games.
Gustavsson became the 15th goalie in NHL history to score a goal and had a 1.00 goals-against average and .962 save percentage over a pair of victories.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Deshaun Watson won’t finish the season as Cleveland’s starting quarterback for the second straight year.
He’s injured again, and the Browns have new problems.
Watson ruptured his right Achilles tendon in the first half of Sunday’s loss to Cincinnati, collapsing as he began to run and leading some Browns fans to cheer while the divisive QB laid on the ground writhing in pain.
The team feared Watson’s year was over and tests done Monday confirmed the rupture. The Browns said Watson will have surgery and miss the rest of the season but “a full recovery is expected.”
It’s the second significant injury in two seasons for Watson, who broke the glenoid (socket) bone in his throwing shoulder last year after just six starts.
The 29-year-old went down Sunday without being touched on a draw play late in the first half. His right leg buckled and Watson crumpled to the turf. TV replays showed his calf rippling, consistent with an Achilles injury.
He immediately put his hands on his helmet, clearly aware of the severity of an injury similar to the one Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers sustained last year.
As he was being assisted by the team’s medical staff and backup Dorian Thompson-Robinson grabbed a ball to begin warming up, there was some derisive cheers and boos from the stands in Huntington Bank Field.
Cleveland fans have been split over Watson, who has been accused of being sexually inappropriate with women.
The reaction didn’t sit well with several Watson’s teammates, including star end Myles Garrett, the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, who was appalled by the fans’ behavior.
“We should be ashamed of ourselves as Browns and as fans to boo anyone and their downfall. To be season-altering, career-altering injury,” Garrett said. “Man’s not perfect. He doesn’t need to be. None of us are expected to be perfect. Can’t judge him for what he does off the field or on the field because I can’t throw stones for my glass house.
“Ultimately everyone’s human and they’re disappointed just like we are, but we have to be better than that as people. There’s levels to this. At the end of the day, it’s just a game and you don’t boo anybody being injured and you don’t celebrate anyone’s downfall.”
Backup quarterback Jameis Winston also admonished the uncomfortable celebration.
“I am very upset with the reaction to a man that has had the world against him for the past four years, and he put his body and life on the line for this city every single day,” he said. “The way I was raised, I will never pull on a man when he’s down, but I will be the person to lift him up.
“I know you love this game. When I first got here, I knew these were some amazing fans, but Deshaun was treated badly and now he has to overcome another obstacle. So I’m going to support him, I’m going to lift him up and I’m going to be there for him.”
The injury is yet another twist in Watson’s tumultuous time with the Browns.
Cleveland traded three first-round draft picks and five overall to Houston in 2022 to get him, with owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam approving the team giving Watson a fully guaranteed, five-year $230 million contract.
With a solid roster, the Browns were desperate to find a QB who could help them compete against the top AFC teams.
The Browns had moved on from Baker Mayfield despite drafting him No. 1 overall in 2018 and making the playoffs two seasons later.
But Watson has not played up to expectations — fans have been pushing for him to be benched this season — and Cleveland’s move to get him has been labeled an abject failure with the team still on the hook to pay him $46 million in each of the next two seasons.
Watson’s arrival in Cleveland also came amid accusations by more than two dozen women of sexual assault and harassment during massage therapy sessions while he played for the Texans. Two grand juries declined to indict him and he has settled civil lawsuits in all but one of the cases.
Watson was suspended by the NFL for his first 11 games and fined $5 million for violating the league’s personal conduct policy before he took his first snap with the Browns. The long layoff — he sat out the 2021 season in a contract dispute — led to struggles once he got on the field, and Watson made just six starts last season before hurting his shoulder.
Cleveland signed veteran Joe Flacco, who went 4-1 as a starter and led the Browns to the playoffs.
Before Watson got hurt this year, he didn’t play much better. He was one of the league’s lowest-rated passers for a Cleveland team that hasn’t scored 20 points in a game and is back in search of a franchise QB.
