CALGARY-Most of the fans had left the WinSport Arena, and Jennifer Jones walked through sheet A and sat cross-legged over the Scotties Tournament of Hearts logo. Jones was sitting there with these four red hearts perfectly arranged in a circle, and she was smiling when her husband Brent Laing took pictures of the greatest competitor this national championship had ever seen, with a silver medal around his neck.
Jones didn’t get to the top in her Scotties final, but she almost got close to him.
On Sunday night, in front of a sold-out crowd, Rachel Homan and Team Ontario continued their incredible unbeaten run here, ending with a 5-4 victory in a match that ended with the penultimate stone, ousting Jones in what she announced will be her last Scotties.
It is a fourth title for Homan, seven years after his last one. If anyone would spoil Jones’ fairy tale, it would certainly be Homan, the third Tracy Fleury, the second Emma Miskew and the first Sarah Wilkes, who have lost only five times this season.
“Unbelievable,” Homan said with a smile when it was over. “It took a team effort. We worked so hard to try to return after giving birth in the summer, at least for Sarah and moi.Et i mean, they got to work and hope that it’s enough, and today it was enough. It’s just a phenomenal feeling.”
The title is a fourth for Miskew, a second for Wilkes and a first for Fleury.
“Incredible. This team is really getting to work,” said Team Ontario coach Don Bartlett. “And Rachel, I mean, she has no devotion. Even when she had her baby [at the end of August], she was playing curling there. She is an awesome athlete. I am so happy for you. She deserved it.”
When it was over, Homan threw his broom on the floor and she, Fleury, Miskew and Wilkes jumped into her arms together. Homan picked up Fleury and turned him. Miskew fought off her tears by hugging her longtime skip.
“It’s so nice to say that we are champions again,” Miskew said with a smile, holding his trophy in his hand. “We fought for each other there. I’m super proud of my teammates.”
There were a lot of feelings in the building on Sunday, it was not just the Scotties final, but Jones’ Forever Scotties final, when she announced that it would be her last one about a week before the start of the national championship.
It was quiet and nervous in the building, really until it was over. The 3,195 fans were not as loud as at the beginning of the week. Cowbells have mostly been put away, with so much at stake.
As the ninth, Team Jones was 4-2 behind and had a chance to score two points after homan’s last stone pulled out a Jones stone that bounced off to count as a drawn stone. It was an unfortunate break for Homan, but she was preparing for the final, which deserved it. Jones pulled on the button to tie things as the 10th approached.
On Homan’s first shot in the final quarter, she pushed a rock forward into the house to have him shoot at the rock, largely thanks to the Herculean sweep efforts of Miskew and Wilkes.
Jones needed a hard pull to give himself the chance to fly. The fans cheered when she slipped to the hack for her last shot at the Scotties, and she remained crouching on the ice while only sailing for a long time.
“We just managed to hang on,” Bartlett said of his Ontario team. “I mean, Jenn does the coming on her last shot, she probably wins. She missed only an inch.”
The crowd got loud when it was over, but the loudest fans were when they gave Jones a standing ovation as she stood in the middle of the ice, clapping, crying and blowing peckes.
His daughters Isabella and Skyla jumped over the boards to peck their mother. “At the top of the world” exploded from the arena’s speakers, and Jones wasn’t quite there, but she was nearby.
“I’m just going to miss everyone,” Jones said in a voice that was broken by emotion. “I love the game. Oh, I love being here. I love what it did for our girls. They believe that everything is possible thanks to curling. …
“I love being part of this curling community and I will really miss it. And standing ovations were more than I ever expected. The fact that all these people came and supported our sport and somehow supported me means the whole world.”
It was not the end of the fairy tale for the greatest of all time, but it was close.
“My last one did it, you don’t want to end up with a dud, but honestly I couldn’t have wished for a better championship,” Jones said. “We made it to the final, we played a great game, and that’s all we could really have wished for. …
“It would have been a icing on the cake to be Team Canada again, but I’m so proud of our week. Everyone thought we were going to get all these distractions because I made the announcement, but we showed up to play and I’m really proud of it.”
No one has won more here than Jones’ six titles. More than his 177 games. She was on the podium in an incredible 15 of 18 Scotties appearances and for the last time on Sunday. Unless, of course, she changes her mind.
“It’s really hard to say goodbye at the moment, to be honest,” Jones said. “And I think it was fair for me, I don’t want my children to look back on life and think that their mother was never in the front row to encourage them, as my mother was for me. So that’s the main reason.”
“But they keep asking me to change my mind, so we’ll see,” the 49-year-old added with a laugh.
“She’s the icon, she’s the GOAT,” said second Emily Zacharias, who at 22 is the youngest on the Jones team. “You get a reputation for playing with her, and you idolized her all your life and saw what she did for curling, and then you find out who she is as a person. You find out that she is an awesome person and has done much more than you think for the sport. And keep learning, the more you will play with her.
“It’s awesome to be able to say that I played with her and got to know her as a person. So it’s something that I will always experience.”
“Jennifer Jones is such a competitor,” Miskew added. “This game, I mean, there was so much action in it.”
So many actions in this Ontario team too. This group has not lost since the end of January, and they will take this winning streak with them when they leave for the World Championships in Nova Scotia next month as Team Canada.
“I think it’s been a really good season for us,” said Fleury, who spoke to the media while keeping an eye on her three-year-old daughter Nina, who was trying to play on the ice with donut in hand. “We’re happy with the way we’re playing right now and we’re looking forward to wearing the maple leaf and seeing what we can do.”
“We will make every effort to represent Canada as well as possible in Canada,” Homan said. “We are so excited that we can do this.”
The skip hesitated and struggled to find the words to describe her victory on Sunday, seven years after her last title here.
“I can’t describe the feeling of coming so close to losing so often — I don’t know, it’s like seven finals,” Homan said. “But I’m so proud of my team that fought and persevered.”
The players stayed on the ice long after the end. Homan’s son ran laps. Her daughter put on the winner’s cowboy hat.
Jones hugged her daughters and took family photos with these heart logos on the ice, her last appearance on Scotties is now in the books. And what a race she had here. It’s hard to believe that it’s over.