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Overview
The women’s team, which hails from Winnipeg, and the men’s team, based in Sault Ste. Marie, dominated the Sochi Olympic curling events, setting records and capturing the hearts of millions of Canadians. Now Winnipeg Sun sports editor Ted Wyman shares the stories of Canada’s favourite curlers. With exclusive interviews and in-depth profiles, Ice Gold delves into each player’s beginnings in the sport, the formation of the teams, their road to the Olympics, and their gold-medal triumphs.
Learn how Jennifer Jones and Jill Officer became an inseparable tandem after meeting at the Highlander Curling Club; how two brothers, E.J. and Ryan Harnden, and their cousin, Brad Jacobs, went from aspiring hockey players to gold-medal curlers; and how Mike Babcock’s inspiring words helped the men’s curling team out of their early Olympic slump.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781770906457 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | ECW Press |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 7 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Ice Gold
Canada's Curling Champions
By Ted Wyman
ECW PRESS
Copyright © 2014 Ted WymanAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77090-645-7
CHAPTER 1
FROM THE COKE MACHINE TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD
The shy little tomboy grew up in the quiet Winnipeg neighborhood of Windsor Park, the younger of two girls in a close-knit family that treasured sports and had a deep passion for curling. Born on July 7, 1974, Jennifer Judith Jones kept to herself and her family in the early days, unsure of herself when it came to making friends and happy to dream about shedding the stifling timidness and growing up to do something special. Painfully introverted, a trait that stayed with her for a few more decades, she found refuge in sports, competing in baseball, volleyball, basketball and track and field.
"I was a super shy kid, like super shy, so sport was kind of my way to be involved," Jennifer Jones recalled. "I never liked to be the centre of attention."
Her parents, Larry and Carol Jones, had strong family values. They believed in raising children the right way and in keeping them active. Both Larry, who worked in sales, and Carol, a nurse, were curlers and that meant Jennifer spent a lot of time at the rink from a very young age. In fact, there was a daycare at the St. Vital Curling Club and that's where little Jennifer spent her time while her parents were on the pebble. She was not particularly interested in building blocks or Barbie dolls, though; it would not have been at all strange to see the little girl, face pressed against the glass, staring down at the action below. "It was all they could do to keep me off the ice," she said.
"I remember being plastered against the glass and everybody always looking for me," she told the Canadian Press back in 2010. "I would always kind of wander off and watch curling. I loved it from the very beginning."
Long before her parents enrolled her and her 18-month-older sister, Heather, in a curling program, Jones was a student of the game. She watched it, studied it, understood it, was infuriated by it; she wanted to play. By the time Larry decided to teach her the game in 1985 when she was 11, he could scarcely have known how much passion for granite, corn brooms and pebbled ice already burned inside her. He held the broom for her as she took her first shaky slides out of the hack, a 75-pound girl trying to manage a 42-pound rock. It's a tradition that continues to this day. Larry still holds the broom when she practises and some 28 years later, when she was on the precipice of winning an Olympic gold medal, she would think of him. As she prepared to take her last shot, the one that would bring her Olympic glory and realize her dreams, she pictured her dad at the other end of the ice, holding the broom.
It would not be long before curling became the shy tomboy's passion, her refuge from the world, the one place where she could shut everything else out and just be herself. "Back then I just loved playing. I loved the smell of the ice, I loved competing, I loved being in the place in the world where I felt the safest." That holds true to this day. "I feel like I'm almost at a spa when I'm on the ice," she said at the Olympics in Sochi. "It's the one time when I can just focus on one thing. My cell phone's not going off, there's the smell of the ice, the feeling I get when I'm sliding ... there's no better place for me in the world."
As a kid, she didn't dream of winning an Olympic gold medal. At that time, curling was still mostly a recreational sport in which even the highest-calibre competitors would drink beer and smoke cigarettes while they played. It wasn't until she was in her twenties that curling became an Olympic sport. Regardless, her early dreams didn't involve medals or trophies or glory in any specific sport.
"I never really had a specific dream of doing anything in particular," she said. "I just really wanted to always try my best, to try to be the best at something."
Her parents supported her in that dream and did whatever they could to make it possible. Perhaps knowing what sports did for her psyche, Larry and Carol made sure their daughter had every opportunity to be on the ice. "They are tremendous people," Jennifer told On Manitoba magazine in 2006. "They have a generous spirit, both of them, and they were very supportive of me in school and in curling. They never missed one curling event and they often skipped holidays to take me. They are my role models, and saints, too, considering what they sacrificed for us."
Jones went to General Vanier School in south Winnipeg from kindergarten to grade 8 and then moved on to Windsor Park Collegiate, where her sporting career took a major shift. Up until that point she was a multi-sport athlete and was particularly proficient at volleyball. "But curling was what I loved and it was all they could do to keep me from going on the ice all the time," she told CBC. "When I was in high school I really had to make a choice and it was actually my volleyball coach who told me I had to choose either volleyball or curling, and I chose curling. It's worked out pretty well for me."
Her first foray into competitive curling came in 1990, when at age 15 she skipped a team in the Manitoba junior women's championship. That team, which included her sister, Heather, at second, Tracey Lavery at third and Dana Malanchuk at lead and was coached by her dad, won one game in the tournament and lost two before being eliminated. It was to be expected for such a young team, competing against curlers who were five years older, but what wasn't expected was how much attention came the skip's way after the tournament. People recognize talent when they see it, and suddenly Jones was in demand. She was recruited to play third for Jill Staub, who was three years her senior, the following season, and success wasn't far behind. That team, which also included Kristie Moroz at second and 14-year-old future world champion skip Kelly MacKenzie (now known as Kelly Scott) at lead, went on to win the Manitoba junior women's championship and moved on to the Canadian juniors as strong contenders.
The Staub team bulldozed through the round robin with only one loss and made it all the way to the final before losing to New Brunswick's Heather Smith. That loss proved to be important in Jones's development as a curler. She was devastated and didn't handle the situation well in her own opinion. That was something she wanted to learn from.
"It took me a long time to recover but it gave me perspective," she told Lawyers Weekly. "You can't let the outcome affect you so much. It took away from the enjoyment of the moment and sport. Ever since then, I've been in the moment. It's helped me have a great perspective in sports and in life. That was the turning point for me. We had lost a heartbreaker. It was there for the taking and it really hurt. I didn't recover from that as well as I should have and I vowed I would never do that again."
Indeed, much later on in life, Jones would often talk about how well her team handled losses, how they could put disappointment aside and move on as well as any team she had ever seen. When she was just 16 and a fledgling competitive curler, Jones recognized her disappointment as a sign of immaturity and immediately started herself on a path to self-improvement.
The following year Jones decided to go back to skipping her own team and set out to piece together the right squad. There was one girl she had seen around the curling scene who she had never met but wanted to play with. She approached the girl, who was a year younger, at the Highlander Curling Club in Winnipeg and pulled her over by the Coke machine. The girl's name was Jill Officer and it would be the beginning of a long, beautiful and highly successful friendship.
Officer was just about to turn 16 at the time and had never even played in a provincial championship at that point. Here was this older girl, who had made it all the way to the Canadian final a year earlier, asking her to join her team.
"I was a bit star-struck," Officer said.
The connection was instantaneous between the two girls, both on and off the ice. They became great friends and curling soulmates. Jones and Officer would curl together for 18 of the next 22 years, making it to the Canadian championship in 12 of those years.
"It really hasn't changed for us over the last 20 years," Jones said. "We got together when we were quite young and had an instant connection on the ice and became really good friends. I think we bring out the best in each other. We have a great work ethic and it's just been an incredible journey for both of us."
Officer also grew up in a sporting family, her father, John, a hockey coach and former player, her mother, Leslie, a sports enthusiast who wanted her children to try many endeavours. In her formative years, Jill took figure skating lessons, gymnastics, baton twirling and played soccer. Her mother signed her up for curling for the first time at age 10 and even put together a team for her. "I was always hanging around a curling club or a hockey rink, so I was bound to take up one of those sports," Jill said in an interview with Active Life magazine. From the very beginning, Jill came to understand the value of physical fitness and always kept her body in tip-top shape. "I've learned a lot about myself, not only as an athlete, but as a person. I've learned what is important for me to be at my best — sleep, nutrition, general health and fitness. It all goes together."
They made it to the Manitoba junior women's final in their first year together before losing to Jennifer's former teammate Tracey Lavery, but Jones had a very positive outlook after the game. The 17-year-old bounded off the ice and eagerly told reporters: "I'm young yet, I've still got a few years to go." It wasn't long before the team really clicked. Along with third Trisha Baldwin and lead Dana Malanchuk, Jones and Officer found their first taste of big-time success in 1993, winning the Manitoba championship and competing in the Canadian juniors, where they compiled an 8-4 record and missed the playoffs. A year later, there would be no stopping them. The same team returned to the Manitoba championship and went undefeated. They went on to the Canadian championship in Truro, Nova Scotia, and, this time, they won it all. Jones and her teammates defeated Saskatchewan 8-5 in the final and the skip left the tournament with the battle scars of a long week. After tripping over her feet during the final, she suffered a black eye and bumped her head; she was a bit woozy as she did interviews following the biggest win of her life. "[My eye] is really sore and I've got the biggest headache of my life," Jones told CBC. "I kinda tripped on my feet and banged my head but we played good so I guess I won't complain. This makes it feel much better." They may not have known that this would be the first of many Canadian titles, but Jones and Officer did know that they loved playing together, and they would endeavour to keep doing so for as long as possible.
"I think we have something special together," Officer said. "We probably bring something out in each other that obviously works because pretty much all of our success has been together. That obviously says something about how it works with us on the ice. We've both grown as people and as athletes, and I feel like she's grown so much as a person and a leader and she's really brought out the best in me and has motivated me to just constantly push to be better."
TSN curling analyst Cathy Gauthier, who played lead for Jones in 2005, said Officer is a huge key to Jones's success, not only because she is a great curler, but also because she is always good for the skip's psyche. She described the relationship between Jones and Officer as "unquestionable loyalty and support."
"It really doesn't matter whether Jen is playing well or not, frustrated or not, they have the longevity and Jen knows that every single game, every single shot, every single time, when she goes to the hack she's going to get that mental support from Jill," Gauthier said. "Jill is a person that is always going to be there for Jen and you don't always have that on a team. Rare teams do. You see people that are with you when things are going well but sometimes they are not so good when things aren't. To have somebody that you know has your back, no matter what happens, is so uplifting. Their friendship is based on complete loyalty."
There may have been times over the years that Jones could have considered going to a different player at the second position. Even if there were a better player out there — which is questionable — there was no way Jones could replace the package of ability and support that came with Officer.
"You've got a best friend that you've also got a chance to play with," Gauthier said. "The friendship was there before and it will be long after curling. The ability, and what's going on, on the ice, is just the second tier."
Jones had made her first big splash on the curling scene with the win at the Canadian juniors. The shy little tomboy had grown into an attractive young woman with long blonde hair, and it was clear early on that the TV cameras loved her. Everything seemed rosy and the future was incredibly bright, but a setback was on the way. Up until 1994, the Canadian junior curling champions were sent to the world championships the following year. Jones and Co., by right, should have been Canada's representatives in the 1995 world junior championship. However, that year the Canadian Curling Association changed the rules and decided it would send the current year's champion to the worlds. The decision meant that Jones's team would now have to win the 1995 Canadian championship just to get a chance to go to the worlds.
First up they would have to get through Manitoba, where an old teammate was standing in the way. Young Kelly MacKenzie, who was the lead on Jones's 1991 team that made it all the way to the Canadian final, was now skipping her own team. When Jones formed her own team in 1992, she chose not to include MacKenzie, instead opting for Malanchuk, and a rivalry that would last for many years was born. In 1995, MacKenzie's team, which included third Joanne Fillion, second Carlene Muth and lead Sasha Bergner, got its first taste of revenge and then came back for seconds. MacKenzie beat Jones in the Manitoba final and earned a berth in the Canadian championship in Regina.
That left Jones and Co. on the outside looking in once again when it came to the world championship, but there was still one last vestige of hope. The Canadian Curling Association decided to give the Jones team another chance to qualify for the worlds and put them directly into the semifinal of the 1995 Canadian junior championship. MacKenzie was once again standing in the way.
It came down to this: Two Manitoba teams, skipped by former teammates, facing each other in the semifinal at the Canadian championship with a chance to go to the worlds on the line. It was both controversial and dramatic and, just like in the Manitoba final, it was MacKenzie who came out on top. She also won the final and earned a trip to the world championship in Perth, Scotland. Her team won that event too and came back to Winnipeg with world championship gold medals.
It was a bitter pill for Jones and her teammates, who certainly were within their rights to believe that trip to the world championship should have been theirs. Since the world junior women's curling championship started in 1988, the 1994 Jennifer Jones team is the only Canadian champion to not participate. Ten years later, when both Jones and MacKenzie were at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in St. John's, Newfoundland, people were still making a big deal about the rivalry born in 1995.
After a stellar junior career that included three Manitoba junior women's titles and a Canadian championship, it was time for Jones and Officer to move on to the real world. After growing up aspiring to be a doctor, Jones changed gears once she got to the University of Manitoba and decided to pursue a law degree.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ice Gold by Ted Wyman. Copyright © 2014 Ted Wyman. Excerpted by permission of ECW PRESS.
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