Joey Payeur
Jenna Walsh had one of her best friends prove last week the size of the town one is from doesn’t matter when it comes to achieving curling greatness.
The former Devlin resident was overjoyed when Stratton native Trevor Bonot, along with his sister, Jackie McCormick, and Thunder Bay’s Megan and Kory Carr, claimed the 2017 Canadian mixed curling championship in Yarmouth, N.S.
“I was driving in my car and I learned about them winning the final on the radio,” recalled Walsh (formerly Enge).
“I was so excited, my husband and I went out that night to celebrate,” she added.
“I even organized the homecoming party for the team.”
Now it’s Walsh’s turn to generate some ice magic herself as she plays second for Sudbury-based skip Tracy Fleury at the 2016 Home Hardware Canada Cup of Curling in Brandon, Man., which runs today through Sunday.
Seven women’s and seven men’s teams will be vying to win their respective divisions and earn an automatic berth into the 2017 “Roar of the Rings” Olympic curling trials in Ottawa next December.
Team Fleury, which also includes third Crystal Webster and lead Amanda Gates, will be riding a positive wave heading into Brandon.
The rink won the Sunova Spiel in East St. Paul, Man. on Monday with an 8-1, five-end hammering of a Winnipeg team led by former Saskatchewan skip Michelle Englot, who took over the squad for retired skip Kristy McDonald this season.
“That win certainly gives us momentum going into the Canada Cup,” said Walsh.
“We played amazing in the final and now we just have to keep that going forward.”
Team Fleury is now in its 10th bonspiel of its second season using a unusual five-person rotation (Fleury’s sister, Jennifer Wylie, also is on the roster), which rarely sees the same four players compete in back-to-back competitions.
“It allows us to play in a lot more bonspiels, work around our jobs, and have a life at home and see our spouses in between,” explained Walsh, who along with Fleury and Wylie (formerly Horgan) all have got married within the past two years.
“So far we’ve reached most of our goals,” she noted. “We’ve qualified [for the playoffs] in every event except two, although we were having a little trouble with quarter-finals.
“Hopefully, Monday’s win broke that mold.”
There is no shortage of high-quality opponents that stand in Team Fleury’s way of a Canada Cup title.
Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones, the defending Olympic champion and 2008 world title-holder, already has an Olympic trials berth locked up after replacing defending national Scotties’ winner Chelsea Carey from Edmonton.
Carey, who also will be in Brandon, failed to medal at the world championships and thus opened the door for Jones, who got the nod as the next highest team in the Canadian Team Ranking System points standings who had not yet qualified for the Olympic trials.
Another team in Brandon already locked in for the trials is Ottawa’s Rachel Homan, a two-time national champion who will have home-ice advantage next December after winning last year’s Canada Cup.
Should Jones or Homan win this week, that will open up a future spot for whomever the third-highest team in the CTRS rankings is at the end of the 2016-17 season instead of just the top two moving on.
Also on hand this week are two-time national runner-up Val Sweeting and two-time world junior champion Kelsey Rocque, both from Edmonton, and defending Manitoba champ Kerri Einarson of Winnipeg.
“I feel we have a very good chance to win against a lot of those teams,” said Walsh, who specifically addressed the two most accomplished skips in the field.
“We’ve had a little trouble going against Rachel [Homan] but we have a good track record against Jennifer [Jones],” she noted.
Walsh said Team Fleury has progressed from originally being a defensive-minded group to one which has taken a more aggressive approach to their games.
That aggression will serve her team well in what will be a hotly-contested competition with so much on the line.
“It would mean the world to me to be able to make it to the Olympic trials,” Walsh said.
“We’re well on our way but we’ve got a little work to do in front of us,” she conceded.
