Einarson clears Hearts hurdle

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This article was published 25/01/2016 (3723 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEAUSEJOUR — After the game was over, Kerri Einarson choked back tears at the podium. She called the feeling “unbelievable.” She held her twin daughters, hoisting one in the crook of each arm.

The first time the 28-year-old East St. Paul skip played in a provincial final, Kamryn and Khloe were infants. Two years later they are toddlers, old enough to get at least a sense of the excitement. Old enough to have watched her slide down the ice at Sun Gro Centre during the round-robin, and shout “go mommy” in a tiny chorus.

And now, Einarson is a champion. She can wear the buffalo jacket. She will go to the 2016 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Grande Prairie, Alta., next month, and call shots for Team Manitoba. Twice before she stood on the brink of it, and twice before she fell just short; first to Chelsea Carey, then to Jennifer Jones.

On her third try, locked in a tough Sunday afternoon match against Kristy McDonald, her luck finally turned. A late steal — a big one — and the rest was a blur.

Then it was Sportsnet cameras and bagpipes. It was Einarson third Selena Kaatz thanking her hometown Beausejour crowd for “the best week of her life,” and Einarson swarmed by microphones and lights. “I’m so, so happy,” the skip said, feet planted firmly on the pebbled ice.

It was a game to remember for Team Einarson, which also includes second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish. They’d played McDonald twice on the World Curling Tour this year, and lost both times. That the two should play each other in the final was expected: McDonald came into Beausejour as top seed, Einarson as second.

The top seed blanked the first; Einarson blanked the third. In between, McDonald scored a second-end deuce, nailing a hit-and-stick for two. It might not have been there had Einarson not missed on her last shot, which reduced a planned double-takeout into a single kill.

In the fourth end, the script flipped. There, it was McDonald’s last shot that missed, a hopeful double that left one of two Einarson rocks lingering in the house. With hammer, Einarson threw a hit for her own deuce. The score stood tied 2-2.

But McDonald and her team of third Kate Cameron, second Leslie Wilson and lead Raunora Westcott grabbed the two points back in the fifth. At that stage, the Granite foursome looked to be in control.

Flash forward to the eighth, after a pair of blanks. McDonald missed another double with her last shot, and Einarson landed another deuce to tie the game again. Suddenly, the East St. Paul skip felt the momentum change. Her team gathered on the side of the ice, and geared up for one more big push.

“That was like ‘OK, perfect, we’re back to Square One, we’re tied up,’” Einarson recalled. “‘Now, let’s just force them.’ That’s all we said to ourselves. ‘OK girls, let’s put our eight shots together… and we ended up coming out and making all eight shots perfect.”

On the other colour rocks, McDonald was having the opposite experience. Her team, so strong before that, suddenly struggled. The misses piled up, and Einarson’s rink soon had them smothered. Einarson’s last two throws were textbook, first a short guard to protect her tight shot rocks, then a silky draw to own the button.

McDonald went back into the hack. Pulled back, and let her draw go, looking to limit damage. It wrecked short of the house. Einarson stole three, and a 7-4 lead.

Instantly, McDonald’s shoulders slumped. The 10th end sped by, Einarson threw one last hit and it was done. A tight game, come undone so suddenly.

“We had the game, and we lost it,” McDonald said, after. “We gave it away in nine. We miss seven shots in nine, and that’s what happens. It’s just bad placement, going deep, and not making stuff the right way. Seven misses, that’s what happens.”

If it had gone another way, McDonald would have deserved it. Both skips did, and both wanted it so badly; after the game, McDonald reflected that she didn’t know how much longer she would play. But this is, as the mantra goes, a game of inches. All the hits and draws in the world, sometimes, can’t undo the damage of the misses.

So Einarson won, and as she did the crowd at Sun Gro Centre roared. Watching in the stands, the first thing Jennifer Jones’ second Jill Officer did was look up when her Team Canada would play Einarson at the Scotties. (For those wishing to mark their calendars: it’ll be in the afternoon on Thursday, Feb. 25.)

Officer was beaming. Last year, she faced a bittersweet moment after winning Manitoba; Einarson lead MacCuish is Officer’s niece. That was hard, Officer said, then laughed. “It is also really hard to be up there in the stands, trying to cheer them on,” she said. “I’m so proud of my niece and her team.”

So that’ll be a story in Grande Prairie. There will be many others. While McDonald and Einarson were playing, Rachel Homan was melting down in Ontario, suffering just her eighth loss of the season the one time she could not afford to lose. So Jenn Hanna will represent Ontario, for the first time since losing the 2005 final to Jennifer Jones’ most legendary shot. (Hanna also used to play alongside Jones lead Dawn McEwen.)

To the west, former Manitoba champ Chelsea Carey was overthrowing Val Sweeting in Alberta. So whatever happens at the Scotties next month, it will not be quite the same script we’ve read the last few years in a row. Jennifer Jones, sure. But just like Manitoba, there is a lot at nationals this year that seems … renewed.

“We just hope we play well, and see what happens,” Kaatz said, still giggling with the thrill of it all. “I don’t know … it’s unreal.”

— Winnipeg Free Press