Curler Jennifer Jones pitches perfect game in second draw, bringing Canada to 2-0

Jennifer Jones was perfect Tuesday morning, methodically dispatching Sweden's Margaretha Sigfridsson to improve her round robin record to 2-0. It shouldn't be surprising that the Canadian women's curling team, represented by Jones' Winnipeg rink, has won both of her first two draws, but the degree of victory certainly is. Jones has been ice-cold so far in the tournament, blowing by two world class curlers.

Bingyu Wang of China is the reigning Olympic bronze medalist and is a former world champion in 2009, and Sigfridsson, now out of the shadow of the retired Anette Norberg to become the dominant Swedish rink in women's curling, was the 2013 European champion. Still, neither game made it to the ninth end. Jones beat Wang 9-2 Monday in seven ends and curled 100% against Sigfridsson Tuesday to win 9-3 after eight, with the Swedish conceding after Jones made an open draw to the four-foot to record three points in the end.

And yes, the margin is impressive. Each curling shot is recorded by a scorekeeper as being out of four points, and Jones earned a perfect four points on each of her 16 shots during her match against Sweden and never giving Sigfridsson an opportunity to work with multiple stones inside the house.

Sigfridsson, who throws first stones for Sweden, was the only Swede to out-curl her Canadian counterpart at her position. Jill Officer and Kaitlyn Lawes, curling second and third stones for Jones, were 89% and 92% respectively, opening wide margins over Maria Wennerstroem (64%) and Christina Bertrup (84%) giving Jones lots of opportunities. When she ran into trouble, she was able to get out of it. Sweden was lying two when Jones stepped up to make her first shot in the fourth, but she made a perfect hit-and-roll and brought her shooter behind cover to force Sweden's final shooter, Maria Prytz, into making a difficult freeze to prevent Canada from scoring two. Prytz's shot overcurled, giving Jones an easy draw for two points.

In the next end Sweden had the hammer, but after Officer and Lawes were able to get three Canadian rocks into the house, Jones was able to chip out the lone Swedish stone with her first shot and grouped her rocks far apart with her second, forcing Prytz to draw the button to give up the hammer. In the sixth, Jones was faced with a difficult out-turn hit to get her deuce, but made no mistake. It was smooth sailing from there on out.

Jones is keeping a blog at the Canadian Curling Association's website for the duration of the games, and has credited the excellent ice with her early success:

It's interesting to contrast both Canadian teams so far. While Brad Jacobs has visually struggled with both the ice and the stones, Jones is curling an astonishing 98% through two games. In her post-game interview on CBC, she expressed her delight at the smoothness of the ice and her team's comfort with it so far in the tournament. Not to be out-done, Lawes is curling at 90%, tops among all thirds who have played at least two games so far (Russia's Margarita Fomina is a distant second at 76%).

But the big story Tuesday morning was Jones. A skip is more likely to throw a perfect game than a pitcher in baseball, especially since the better the skip plays, the more chance there is the opposition concedes early and reducing the number of shots the skip needs to throw. Two Canadian skips, Stephanie Lawton and Rachel Homan, threw perfect games at last week's Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the Canadian national women's curling championship.

Jones' rink isn't the only one to jump out of the gate to a 2-0 start. Mirjam Ott of Switzerland opened with wins over the United States and Denmark, and, in a bit of a surprise, Russia's Anna Sidorova climbed to 2-0 with a win against the Americans in the fourth session, much to the delight of a loud home crowd in Sochi.