Can't be stopped: Manitoba wins the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts

Jennifer Jones has taken another step towards putting her name at the very top of the list of all-time best skips in women's curling. If she hasn't gotten there already.

With an almost wide open house at the other end of the ice - just one barely biting Alberta stone staring her down, Jones easily drew in for the winning point in a 6-5 victory, giving her Manitoba team the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts championship.

“To come back after our Olympic win and come and win this event and be Team Canada at the worlds, we’re just so honoured,” Jones told TSN, moments after the victory.

Jones and her St. Vital curling club team, with Dawn McEwen at lead, Jill Officer at second and Kaitlyn Lawes at third, scratched out a tough, tough win against a very game Alberta side, skipped by Val Sweeting.

It wasn't a high octane, heartstopping kind of game, but it was one of close quarters, with neither side giving way too much, neither side able to grab it by the throat.

It got off to a terrific start.

In the first end, Sweeting made a tremendous draw to the side of the button with her last shot, to just out-count a Jones rock at the top of the button. Could have been good for a steal against a lot of teams, but not against Jones, who followed with a delicate tap back to score two. That was about as good a curling shot as you can make and it seemed a sign Jones was on her game.

When Sweeting followed in the second end with a gutsy come around take out for her own deuce, it was game on for sure.

It was Sweeting who kept things up more than Jones, booking a 95% personal shooting percentage through five ends, including a crowd pleasing in-off to pick a Manitoba stone off the button in that fifth end. “I think we’re pretty comfortable out there,” she said during her mid game interview. Indeed, as a team, the Albertans were really gunning at that point, with a collective shooting score of 91%.

With Jones shooting 75% through five and her team at 76%, it was clear which rink was in control. "They just don't seem as comfortable as we've seen them all week", said TSN's Cheryl Bernard, of Team Jones.

Jones would get comfortable, however, finishing the game at 85%, which was four points higher than her average for the week. Her team, as a whole, scrambled back to 82% by the time that final draw had settled.

The second half of the game saw the screws really tighten, with every inch of ice being scrapped for. With the pressure mounting, both sides were forced to take singles with the hammer in each of the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth ends.

That meant, in a 5-5 tie, Jones and her 2014 Olympic champions had hammer in the 10th and deciding end. They would make no mistake in converting the advantage.

The win means the fortunes of Jones' team keep on soaring, incredibly so. With absolutely no letdown after their perfect run to an Olympic gold medal a year ago, in Sochi, the number one-ranked women's team on the planet just keeps winning. For the skip and her second, Officer, it means a fifth Scotties title. For McEwen, it's a third. For Lawes, it's a first and Jones said in her post-game interview that getting the vice her first Scotties diamond was a driving force.

With twelve wins and just one loss - a midweek swoon against Nova Scotia - the Manitobans were barely touched, and their record ultimately included three wins against Alberta, all tolled.

Jones and Officer each made their eighth appearance in a Scotties final - more than any other players in history. The skip ran her all-time Scotties wins total to 114, trailing only Nova Scotia's Colleen Jones (131 wins) in that regard. As well, Jennifer Jones now trails Colleen Jones by just one national championship.

Jennifer Jones is also the all-time leader in Scotties playoff wins, with 20.

Of course, you don't get all that way without great teammates. Officer and McEwen were each named first team all-stars this past week, a record sixth time for each of them.

But, in curling, we talk about skips. We talk about skips the way we talk about goalies in hockey or quarterbacks in football.

Jones has just about done it all, now. The one blight on her record had been failure, more often than success, on the international stage. The Olympic win should have silenced her critics. If, for some reason, those critics remain inexplicably unconvinced, another World Championship would most certainly turn the trick.

“We’ll see if we can do it again," a beaming Jones told TSN. "I can guarantee we’re going to give it our best effort on the ice.”