Einarson tops Jones to win fourth straight Canadian women’s curling championship and tie all-time record – Toronto Sun

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It was an all-Manitoba match-up, featuring two all-time great skips chasing their own pieces of history, and it made for a tantalizing finale to a memorable Scotties Tournament of Hearts on Sunday evening.

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In the end it was Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man., who changed the record books by pulling off a 10-4 victory over Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg to claim the Canadian women’s curling championship at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops, B.C.

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Einarson, Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard and Briane Harris won their fourth straight Scotties title, equalling the record held by Nova Scotia’s Colleen Jones (2001-2004).

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It’s unbelievable to be up there with Colleen Jones. That’s pretty impressive. Four titles in a row

Kerri Einsarson

“Oh my God, it means so much,” Einarson told reporters after the game.

“It’s unbelievable to be up there with Colleen Jones. That’s pretty impressive. Four titles in a row … that’s amazing.

“I think this one’s even better than our first. It definitely never gets old.”

Team Canada (Einarson) lost just one game in the tournament for the second straight year and came the long way through the playoffs to avenge a Friday night “seeding game” defeat at the hands of Jones.

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Einarson beat Nova Scotia’s Christina Black in the Page playoff 3 vs. 4 game Saturday, topped Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville 7-5 in Sunday’s semifinal and then topped six-time champion Jones in the final.

“So much grit, determination,” said Einarson, 35. “This team never gives up and that’s what makes us who we are. We just go out there and enjoy every single minute, and had some fun, and that’s when we really shine.”

Birchard, 28, won her fifth Scotties title in five finals. She won as a replacement third with Jones in 2018 and has now won the last four straight with Einarson.

“It’s amazing,” Birchard said. “I can’t believe we did it again. We did it exactly the same way we did it last year, going undefeated and then dropping that seeding game. If there’s one thing I know about this team, it’s that we can pick ourselves up after a loss and come back firing even more.”

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Einarson and her teammates, who have been Canadian champions since February of 2020, will look to win their first world women’s title March 18-26 in Sandviken, Sweden.

Canada, with Team Einarson competing, won a bronze medal last year at the worlds and finished out of the medals in 2021. There were no world championships in 2022 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We want to chase that gold,” Birchard said. “We were so happy with bronze last year but we really want to be at the top of the podium and prove ourselves as the best in the world. I really think this is our year.”

Jones, who represented Manitoba in the Scotties, said she expects big things from an Einarson team that has already done so much on home soil.

“It’s a great accomplishment,” Jones said of Einarson’s four straight wins. “They’ve been consistent at this event. They come and they play well and it’s an impressive win.”

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Jones, playing with a first-year team that featured four players half her age, was trying to become the first person to win seven Scotties championships and cement her legacy as perhaps the greatest women’s curler of all-time.

“We just didn’t make quite enough shots,” Jones said. “We were just in all kinds of trouble. I’m proud of our week and really happy to have been in the final.

“I’m just disappointed that we didn’t come out and put our A-game together but it was great experience for all of us. It didn’t go our way today, but that’s why you keep grinding and keep trying to get better.”

Jones, who won in 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2015 and 2018, still shares the record of six championships with her former teammate Jill Officer and Nova Scotia’s Colleen Jones. Jones has now lost four Canadian finals and is the only person ever to appear in 10 of them.

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The 48-year-old joined a new team this year — with third Karlee Burgess, 24, Mackenzie Zacharias, 23, Lauren Lenentine, 22, and Emily Zacharias, 21 — after breaking up a team that represented Canada at the Olympics in 2022.

The Zacharias team made it to the Scotties in 2021 and 2022, without Jones, but reached new heights after adding an all-time great skip to the line-up and very nearly took home a Canadian women’s championship.

“I’m feeling a lot of emotions,” Mackenzie Zacharias said. “That was a pretty tough one. I’m super grateful for the opportunity to be here. I’m super happy we got to play in this game. It’s just been a thrill to play with (Jones).”

The Zacharias sisters, Burgess and Lenentine are still looking for their first national women’s title, though they did win the Canadian and world junior titles in 2020.

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Just based on all the potential history, and the fact that two teams from the same province were going head-to-head, the game was highly anticipated by fans in Kamloops and TV viewers across the country.

Manitoba started with the hammer in the first end — the result of their win over McCarville in Friday night’s Page 1 vs. 2 game — but Jones was forced to take one and relinquish last rock quickly.

Einarson wasn’t able to do much with that in the second and she had a few nervous moments as her draw to the eight-foot slid as far as it possibly could without going too far and she scored one.

In the third, a good last draw by Einarson took away a potential big end from Jones, who wound up being forced to play a tap for one to take a 2-1 lead.

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Both skips were heavy with rocks in the fourth end and squandered opportunities, but Einarson was good with her last one to score a deuce with a hit-and-stick takeout and tie it at 2-2.

The game took a big turn in the fifth, when Jones was forced to try a wide draw to the eight-foot to score one. Her rock seemed to fudge up and came up well light, giving Canada the first deuce of the game, on a steal.

The struggle continued in the sixth for Jones, who was left with only an opportunity to make a very difficult draw to score two. Her draw came up light again and wound up scoring just one to make it 4-3, also relinquishing the hammer back to Einarson.

Einarson had to hit against three with her last rock in the seventh, but she was on the money and took a point to make it 5-3.

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Jones was held to one again in the eighth, though she tried a long double-raise to try to get a second point and it didn’t work out.

In the ninth, everything fell apart for Jones. Trailing 5-4, her team tried to pull out the stops to steal and wound up leaving Einarson a hit for five.

Einarson easily made the shot and it was an anti-climactic ending as Jones and her teammates chose to shake hands, trailing 10-4 with an end to play.

Anti-climactic yes, but historic all the same.

Twyman@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/Ted_Wyman