[FONT="]A hush seemed to fall over the building as the officials stepped on the ice for a final measurement that would determine whether Jennifer Jones or Heather Nedohin would go on to play the Gold Medal game and when all was said and done, it was millimeters that made the difference as Jennifer's team would be relegated to the Bronze Medal game and Heather's team would meet Kelly Scott's BC team.
[/FONT][FONT="]Nedohin rink was Canada's best when it mattered most
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[/FONT][FONT="]"RED DEER, Alta. — From the “Takes One to Know One” files, we turn to Amy Nixon to provide this summation of Heather Nedohin’s playoff performance at the Enmax Centrium this weekend.
“Heather has this little peacock strut, you know?” said Nixon, moments after being presented with a gold medal as the alternate for Nedohin’s newly crowned Scotties Tournament of Hearts championship team. “I was seeing that strut and a cool, calm confidence really came into here in that last day of the round robin, and it just carried on in a wave. And I never saw it break from there. Heather was on fire. She found the right mix of intensity, fun and confidence, and it was fantastic to see.”
Yes, it certainly was.
In a roller-coaster nine days of curling here that features some of the most bizarre plot twists in the history of the Canadian women’s championship, it was left to a player who left photographers and camera operators star-struck with a calm and poise that you might never expected from her outward appearances.
It was a team effort, there can be little doubt about that. Third Beth Iskiw, second Jessica Mair and lead Laine Peters all outplayed their B.C. counterparts in Alberta’s 7-6 win Sunday, and if it had come down to the alternates, Nixon probably would have done the same to Sherry Fraser.
But you cannot say enough about the clutch performance of Nedohin, particularly over the past 48 hours as she willed her team to three victories and charmed the country in doing so.
She sent a powerful message early on in this game with a decision to play a delicate tap to score three in the second end after forcing Kelly Scott to draw for a single in the first end. There was an easier shot for two, unquestionably, available to Nedohin, and the TSN crew second-guessed the attempt for three. But it was the right call, regardless of the fact that a rub off the B.C. stone left her counting just one. It told her team, it told Scott’s team, and it told the pro-Alberta crowd that she wasn’t going to take the path of least resistance. She was going to force the issue.
And she kept forcing the issue in the following two ends. She set up a wonderful steal in the third end, and got a break in the fourth when Scott was being forced to hit for one and watched her last rock pick up some debris just outside the hog-line and veer off path, leaving Alberta with another steal.
It was a horrible bit of bad luck for B.C., no doubt, but to suggest that pick was the difference in the game would diminish what Alberta had been doing up to that point, and what Nedohin’s team did afterwards. The better team won Sunday, plain and simple.
It is remarkable that this game can turn on a millimetre or two. Less than 24 hours ago, everybody who was watching the 11th end of the Alberta-Manitoba semifinal was convinced that Alberta was about to be eliminated as it looked that Nedohin’s last-rock draw for the win was heavy. Instead, it was Alberta who won the measure, and the ride continued into the final.
Scott’s team was the feel-good story of this championship. It was wonderful to see the Kelowna skip back in the picture for the Scotties title, even after a hard-luck week dealing with Sasha Carter’s stomach bug. This is a classy team, top to bottom, and one can only hope that Scott and Co. can keep this momentum going for the next couple of years.
And a word or two about the bronze medallist here, Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones. Her team was flat in two playoff losses, but came back strongly in a bronze-medal game that is almost universally reviled by the players, and seems to be a bit of a cash-grab for TSN and the host committee. It is a made-for-TV game that no player wants to be a part of.
Having said all that, Jones came out and performed admirably Sunday morning, as she did all week.
At the end of the day, though, this Scotties will be defined by what Nedohin, Iskiw, Mair and Peters did on the closing weekend. They rose to the occasion. They embraced the moment.
And they deserve to be wearing the Maple Leaf next month in Lethbridge."
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[/FONT][FONT="]Nedohin rink was Canada's best when it mattered most
[/FONT][FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT="]"RED DEER, Alta. — From the “Takes One to Know One” files, we turn to Amy Nixon to provide this summation of Heather Nedohin’s playoff performance at the Enmax Centrium this weekend.
“Heather has this little peacock strut, you know?” said Nixon, moments after being presented with a gold medal as the alternate for Nedohin’s newly crowned Scotties Tournament of Hearts championship team. “I was seeing that strut and a cool, calm confidence really came into here in that last day of the round robin, and it just carried on in a wave. And I never saw it break from there. Heather was on fire. She found the right mix of intensity, fun and confidence, and it was fantastic to see.”
Yes, it certainly was.
In a roller-coaster nine days of curling here that features some of the most bizarre plot twists in the history of the Canadian women’s championship, it was left to a player who left photographers and camera operators star-struck with a calm and poise that you might never expected from her outward appearances.
It was a team effort, there can be little doubt about that. Third Beth Iskiw, second Jessica Mair and lead Laine Peters all outplayed their B.C. counterparts in Alberta’s 7-6 win Sunday, and if it had come down to the alternates, Nixon probably would have done the same to Sherry Fraser.
But you cannot say enough about the clutch performance of Nedohin, particularly over the past 48 hours as she willed her team to three victories and charmed the country in doing so.
She sent a powerful message early on in this game with a decision to play a delicate tap to score three in the second end after forcing Kelly Scott to draw for a single in the first end. There was an easier shot for two, unquestionably, available to Nedohin, and the TSN crew second-guessed the attempt for three. But it was the right call, regardless of the fact that a rub off the B.C. stone left her counting just one. It told her team, it told Scott’s team, and it told the pro-Alberta crowd that she wasn’t going to take the path of least resistance. She was going to force the issue.
And she kept forcing the issue in the following two ends. She set up a wonderful steal in the third end, and got a break in the fourth when Scott was being forced to hit for one and watched her last rock pick up some debris just outside the hog-line and veer off path, leaving Alberta with another steal.
It was a horrible bit of bad luck for B.C., no doubt, but to suggest that pick was the difference in the game would diminish what Alberta had been doing up to that point, and what Nedohin’s team did afterwards. The better team won Sunday, plain and simple.
It is remarkable that this game can turn on a millimetre or two. Less than 24 hours ago, everybody who was watching the 11th end of the Alberta-Manitoba semifinal was convinced that Alberta was about to be eliminated as it looked that Nedohin’s last-rock draw for the win was heavy. Instead, it was Alberta who won the measure, and the ride continued into the final.
Scott’s team was the feel-good story of this championship. It was wonderful to see the Kelowna skip back in the picture for the Scotties title, even after a hard-luck week dealing with Sasha Carter’s stomach bug. This is a classy team, top to bottom, and one can only hope that Scott and Co. can keep this momentum going for the next couple of years.
And a word or two about the bronze medallist here, Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones. Her team was flat in two playoff losses, but came back strongly in a bronze-medal game that is almost universally reviled by the players, and seems to be a bit of a cash-grab for TSN and the host committee. It is a made-for-TV game that no player wants to be a part of.
Having said all that, Jones came out and performed admirably Sunday morning, as she did all week.
At the end of the day, though, this Scotties will be defined by what Nedohin, Iskiw, Mair and Peters did on the closing weekend. They rose to the occasion. They embraced the moment.
And they deserve to be wearing the Maple Leaf next month in Lethbridge."
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