Jennifer Jones and Brent Laing did as much to endear themselves to Sudbury curling fans off the ice as they did via their on-ice performance this week at the Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex.
Interviewed moments after their semi-final 6-5 Sunday morning win over Rachel Homan and Tyler Tardi, the curling couple who have combined for no less than five world championships were extolling the virtues of their week spent in the nickel city, their week spent here as part of the impressive field that gathered for the 2023 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championships.
“It’s been a great week; we love Sudbury,” said Jones. “We’re looking at real estate here.”
On the ice, the tandem that combines two absolute giants of the sport (Jones and Laing have garnered an astounding twenty medals at either the Scotties Tournament of Hearts or the Tim Hortons Brier) have now added a national mixed doubles title to their resume.
Before a sold-out rink, the Jones-Laing pairing replicated their morning performance, heading to the eighth and final end deadlocked in a tie game – this time with the #1 ranked team in the country in Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant – and then using their one and only “power play” to full advantage, scoring five in the eighth and walking off with a 9-4 win.
“We’ve been making a ton of shots and a ton of draw shots – and this is really a draw game,” said Laing afterwards. “There are some hits mixed in, but for the most part, it’s who controls the four foot and we’ve had good draw weight, so we were getting lots of opportunities.”
Truth be told, the ice technicians crew under the guidance of Sudbury mainstay Tom Leonard could not have done a better job, allowing so many of the best rock throwers in the country to truly showcase their talents these past six days.
“The ice has been fabulous here all week,” said Jones. “It’s been an absolute pleasure to play out there. There are always a couple of shots that you want to have over again, but that’s what being an athlete is all about. You’re always trying to get better in your game.”
“The ice has been so consistent all week that I feel like we have played well from start to the finish. A couple of bumps along the way but for the most part, this has probably been our most consistent week.”
The numbers tend to back her up.
Jones and Laing were one of only three teams in the field of 32 to post an unblemished 7-0 record in round robin play, joined by Peterman and Gallant as well as the Alberta duo of Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres.
While the crowds ranged from decent to very good throughout the week, they were jammed tight beginning on Saturday night as the snow storm did little to dissuade all those who wanted to take in quarter-final action.
Teams Jones/Laing and Peterman/Gallant both looked extremely impressive in besting Lisa Weagle/John Epping (7-2) and Lynn Kreviazuk/David Mathers (8-1) respectively, with the other two battles keeping fans on the edge of their seats.
The Calgary pair of Brittany Tran and Aaron Sluchinski jumped out to a 7-2 lead after six but had to hold off for a 7-6 win over Walker/Muyres, while Chaelynn Kitz and Brayden Stewart would see their final stone slide about three feet too deep, allowing Homan/Tardi to escape with a steal of one in the eighth and a 6-5 win.
The Sunday morning affairs were an absolute treat for fans of this relatively new variation of the game that sees much of the action take place inside the four foot ring to the button and moves along at a frenetic pace, with teams throwing five stones each after two are pre-placed on the center line to start each end (unless a team invokes the power play, which then places a stone behind a corner guard).
Tran and Sluchinski had Peterman and Gallant on the ropes, up 5-2 before the latter rallied, with the teams tied at six and heading to an extra end before the couple that has two Canadian Mixed Doubles titles already to their name (2016 and 2019) made to their way to meet Jones and Laing by virtue of a 7-6 triumph.
Meanwhile, a back and forth between the eventual champs and Homan/Tardi came right down to the final stone, with Jones converting on her last shot for a 6-5 win.
The local sister-brother pairing of Tracy Fleury and Jake Horgan, who represented Northern Ontario at the event, came a win away from qualifying for the playoffs, posting a record of 4-3. An 8-7 setback to Margot Flemming and Jamie Koe (Northwest Territories) ultimately doomed their chances, especially after the Sudbury siblings then rebounded with an 8-5 win over Colton/Kadriana Lott in their final match, knocking off a team that were silver medal winners in both 2018 and 2021.
Still with local flavour, long-time curler and coach Lee Toner was returning to his roots, stepping in and lending a helping hand with Team New Brunswick (Melissa Adams/Alex Robichaud).
“Melissa and I come from the same small town in New Brunswick, Grand Falls,” explained the Sudbury physician who has been to the Brier on three occasions, plus a handful more as an alternate. Back in 1998, Toner would coach a team of Melissa Adams (then McClure), Nancy Toner, Brigitte McClure and Bethany Toner to a world junior curling crown in Thunder Bay (in a field that included now four-time straight world champion Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland).
“Here we find ourselves 25 years later at another nationals together,” said Toner.
The New Brunswick pair approached him about lending a helping hand, as the coach of the foursome that represented the NOCA at the recent U18 Nationals in Timmins outlined where he most had an impact.
“I was involved in discussions and strategy, but that probably wasn’t my big role,” he said. “They had other needs and I had other roles: reading the ice, learning to play on arena ice, pre-game preparation, understanding the ups and downs of the week.”
And when it comes to the ice, Toner is intimately familiar with the work of Tom Leonard.
“The ice was really, really good,” said Toner, echoing a sentiment that was shared pretty much universally by all of the curlers. “One of the things that Tom does really well is that he manages the temperature and the speed so that we don’t get picks, we don’t have flat ice at the end of the game and stuff like that.”
“He’s figured that out – and we really appreciate it. There is nothing worse than having a game decided by something outside of your control.”
