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2013 Scotties Tournament Of Hearts field: Contenders, challengers and long shots
In looking at the field for the 2013 Scotties Tournament Of Hearts - to be played beginning this weekend in Kingston, Ontario - it appears that it can be split into three basic groups: Contenders, challengers and long shots. Here's a look at how they stack up for The Scotties:
CONTENDERS
The top four contenders for the championship are defending champion Heather Nedohin, British Columbia's Kelly Scott, Manitoba's Jennifer Jones and Ontario's Rachel Homan.
Nedohin returns wearing the Team Canada jacket after beating Scott's B.C. rink in the 2012 final in Red Deer, Alberta. As defending champion, her team was granted a pass directly into this year's Scotties. Avoiding the Alberta playdowns in 2013 may be a hindrance to her team's play here as many believe the ringer of provincial battle sharpens a team for a run at nationals. However, Nedohin thinks being able to tailor her team's schedule to her liking this season has been a plus. And it just so happens that in the thirteen championships held this century, Team Canada has won six of them. “For any one of the teams the object is just to get to playoffs and then it’s a matter of any one of those four teams can win," she said.
Scott returns after winning her sixth B.C. title in nine years. The two-time champion has once again been forced to her alter her line-up, with two players from last year's team leaving. However, one of the players Scott has with her this time, vice Jeanna Schraeder, is back after taking last season off. Schraeder previously played with Scott in Scotties wins in 2006 and 2007. Having said that, the skip says it's been a year of working out the kinks and she believes her team is ready to put it all together at precisely the right time. "We just really worked our butts off in December and January and really came together as a team," she said. Last year, they were racked by flu and still lost the final by just one rock.
Jones has never missed playoffs in nine trips to the Scotties, even though she can sometimes suffer from a slow start to the week. The four-time champ returned to action in January's Continental Cup, after taking the first half of the season off to recover from knee surgery and have a baby. She hasn't missed a beat and was in fine form in winning the Manitoba Scotties. "This was really our first real competition together as a team and it felt like I hadn’t been away," Jones said of provincials. Some observers believe this is her strongest team ever and that she has never curled better.
23 year old Homan has been blasting her way through the 2012-2013 season and she went perfect a perfect 11 and oh at the Ontario Scotties, racking up a bunch of lopsided scores. In 30 games leading up to and through the provincial championship, she apparently gave up only two steals, each of one point. That's in 30 games, not ends. Her team is young, but this is their second Scotties in three years and she seems to be on a mission. "Obviously our team would love to represent Canada," she said.
CHALLENGERS
The contenders are followed by a group of three which can be considered decent bets to jump into the playoff fray, should any of the big four falter. That group would include Nova Scotia's Mary-Anne Arsenault, Saskatchewan's Jill Shumay, and Alberta's Kristie Moore.
Arsenault's rink is as decorated as they come. Her second for this event is someone named Colleen Jones, who's won six Scotties as a skip, five of them with Arsenault as her second. Their vice for those championships was Kim Kelly, who plays that role once again this year. Experience is their forte. As Jones says: "That's in our bones. That's in our DNA." It will be interesting to see how the 53 year old Jones keeps up with the sweeping, though she says she's absolutely up to it.
Shumay says she can't wait to meet Jones. The native of Maidstone, Saskatchewan is in her second year skipping with her current team after taking about a decade away from that position. After finishing third in Saskatchewan in 2012, her crew took dead aim at a ticket to nationals and made good that goal. "I guess they know us now," Shumay said of fans who were taken aback by her provincial win.
Moore surprised as a winner in Alberta, entering the provincial Scotties as the tenth seed and as skip of a team that got together just last fall. After losing two straight to begin, she finished the week at the Lethbridge Curling Club with an 11th end draw to the button to defeat her old skip, Renee Sonenberg, who travels to Kingston with Moore as Alberta's alternate. Maybe they weren't supposed to win Alberta. Doesn't mean Moore feels satisfied just making it to Kingston. “I’m very happy to be there but I want to do better than just be there," she said.
LONG SHOTS
The last group in the field could be considered long shots to be around when the final four are determined late in the week. They are: The Territories' Kerry Galusha, New Brunswick's Andrea Crawford, Prince Edward Island's Suzanne Birt, Newfoundland and Labrador's Stacie Devereaux, and Quebec's Allison Ross.
Galusha earns her eleventh trip to The Scotties, still looking for her first playoff appearance. Crawford comes to the Scotties for a sixth time. Incredibly, four of her previous five appearances have led to records of 5 - 6 in the round-robin. If she can find consistency, maybe she jumps up to the next group. Birt skips in her sixth Scotties, but in her last four trips has not been able to recapture the magic of her rookie run in 2003, where she went 10 and 1 in the round-robin before losing two playoff games and capturing bronze. She did make playoffs in 2007. Devereaux hopes for better times than at her first nationals, two years ago, where she skipped her team to last place. Ross makes her debut as a skip, but is in her third Scotties. She threw vice rocks for Quebec and skip Brenda Nicholls in 2005.
OVERVIEW
It will be very difficult for the top four to be denied playoff spots. If any of them stumble and an unlikely team is to grab a berth, any of the three teams listed in the 'challengers' section are more than capable of taking advantage. If they get to play in lots of clean, defensive games, Arsenault's foursome could be ready to pounce. Shumay's Saskatchewan rink, which turned in a big effort in beating very good teams at the provincial Scotties, could get off to a good start, but will need a big kick at the end of the week to sustain momentum and that might be tough to do. Four of their final five games are against Ontario, B.C., Canada, and Manitoba at a time all those big guns will be hitting the accelerator for positioning. Moore plays Ontario and B.C. early, at a time when upsets are more likely to happen.
THE WINNER?
When all is said and done and the Sunday final is at hand, I'll take Jennifer Jones to win her fifth Scotties championship in a tight one over Rachel Homan.
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