Jennifer Jones bid a reluctant goodbye to a curling stage the place she’s carried out brilliantly in her profession.
Her Manitoba workforce’s exit in Sunday’s 5-4 loss to Rachel Homan within the Scotties Tournament of Hearts ultimate marked the top of an period in ladies’s curling.
The 49-year-old from Winnipeg declared earlier than the Canadian ladies’s championship in Calgary that her 18th look was her final.
Jones intends to retire from workforce curling after this season, though she’s going to proceed to curve blended doubles competitively together with her husband Brent Laing.
Tied for essentially the most Canadian curling titles with Colleen Jones at six and the one lady to skip an unbeaten workforce in an Olympic Games, two-time world champion Jones dominates debate over who’s the nation’s finest feminine roller of all time.
Her 11 appearances in Hearts’ finals, 39 profession playoff video games and 236 video games performed are all event data.
Jones stood within the centre of the home-end rings and acknowledged the standing ovation she acquired Sunday evening from a sold-out crowd of three,195 at WinSport Event Centre.
“I’m going to miss everybody,” Jones stated. “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.”
Team Manitoba-Jones skip Jennifer Jones, left, turns into emotional after being defeated by Team Ontario-Homan skip Rachel Homan, proper, within the ultimate on the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Calgary, Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Jones is arguably leaving nonetheless on the high of her sport. She showcased her catalogue of photographs in Calgary with a number of exact attracts, finesse hits and rolls and runbacks to attain a number of factors in an finish.
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But draw weight eluded her Sunday, which was deadly towards Homan’s workforce that excels in defending with big-hit weights.
Jones’ walk-off deflection off an Ontario stone properly outdoors the rings for a takeout on the button to win her first Hearts in 2005 remains to be in heavy rotation on curling spotlight reels.
“As far as I’m concerned, she’s put modern day women’s curling on the map,” stated four-time males’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 on the degree of curling she has requires travelling to almost-weekly tournaments throughout Canada within the winter.
Jones has stated she desires to be bodily within the room extra with younger daughters Isabella and Skyla, as an alternative of story time and spelling homework performed nearly by way of a display.
It might have been the emotion of the second, however Jones left the door open a crack to unretire.
“This moment, it’s really hard to say goodbye to be honest,” Jones stated. “I’m identical to loving it. I don’t need my youngsters to look again on life and suppose that their mum was by no means 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 gained 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 additionally gained a world title in 2018 in North Bay, Ont.
Jones gained her first world championship in 2008 in Vernon, B.C., with entrance finish of Officer and McEwen and third Cathy Overton-Clapham. Jones’ groups gained Canada’s Olympic ladies’s trials in each 2013 and 2021.
“A really fierce competitor. I’ve been playing against her for a long time,” stated Hearts bronze medallist Kate Cameron, who misplaced 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 on the Olympic Games a second time in Beijing and ending fifth, her workforce disbanded and Jones took over a younger workforce of ladies nearly half her age.
Jones reached the 2023 Canadian ultimate with them in Kamloops, B.C., the place she misplaced to Kerri Einarson and led them to the ultimate once more in Calgary.
Karlee Burgess, Emily Zacharias and Lauren Lenentine all underneath the age of 25 – and Emily’s sister Mackenzie who performed for Jones final season – had Jones to speed up them via the aggressive hole younger curlers expertise upon commencement from the junior ranks.
“We are lucky to have this opportunity to play in Jenn’s last Scotties,” Burgess stated through the event. “Not a lot of people get to play with Jenn Jones.”
© 2024 The Canadian Press
Jennifer Jones bids bittersweet farewell in her last Canadian women’s curling championship
