Fearsome foursome: Einarson’s team revelling in fourth straight Scotties title

Kerri Einarson is ecstatic to be keeping up with one of the Joneses.

Einarson won her fourth straight Scotties Tournament of Hearts championship on Sunday, becoming the first skip to accomplish that feat since Colleen Jones won four consecutive Canadian women’s curling titles from 2001 through ’04.

“It’s pretty unbelievable,” Einarson told The Green Zone’s Jamie Nye on Thursday. “I never thought in my curling career that I would be in the record books with Colleen Jones, so that’s pretty special and we’re absolutely honoured.

“I know going into the Scotties this year, I said to my husband, ‘I’m kind of nervous. I really want to win for a fourth time,’ and he’s like, ‘Don’t be. Just go out there and do what you do,’ and sure enough, that’s what we did.”

Einarson and her team of Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard and Briane Harris went undefeated in the round-robin, but then lost in a Page playoff seeding game to fall into the 3-4 Page game. They had to win that game and a semifinal just to reach the final, in which they beat Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones 10-4 to claim the title.

At the end of the week, Einarson’s crew had overcome some of the best women’s curlers in the country … again.

“Going into it, we were like, ‘Wow, this is a tough field,’ ” Einarson said. “It always is really hard to get out of Canada and to go to the worlds, so to do it four straight, it’s pretty amazing. We’ve definitely put in a lot of work on and off the ice the last few seasons.”

The Canadian champions now will head to the world curling championship, held March 18-26 in Sandviken, Sweden. But they’ll travel overseas knowing things haven’t gone that well for them at previous world events.

The 2020 championship was cancelled due to COVID-19 just days before the tournament was to begin.

In 2021, Einarson and Co. went 7-6 in the round-robin before losing in a qualification game that ended their tournament.

And in ’22, a late-game collapse in a semifinal against South Korea put Canada into the bronze-medal game. The Canadians downed Sweden in that game to finish third.

“The first one, we didn’t get to play and then the other two weren’t quite the whole experience,” Einarson said. “It was still the COVID era and things were still a little challenging.

“Now that that’s all put aside and (we’ve) moved forward, we are definitely looking forward to going to Sweden and representing Canada again. We have some unfinished business that we want to take care of.”

Einarson said the Canadians are eager to win the gold – this country hasn’t claimed the world title since Jennifer Jones prevailed in 2018 – but the fact remains that the world is catching up to Canada.

Most teams from other countries are chosen to compete in the world championship, so they can prepare themselves mentally for it. The Canadian representatives have to fight their way through provincial playdowns and the Scotties before they get to the world event, while also worrying about their day-to-day lives.

“(For) a lot of these European teams and world teams, curling is their job and that’s what they do,” Einarson said. “For us Canadians, that isn’t the same. It makes it just a little more challenging to strictly focus on curling when a lot of us have families or jobs and other commitments also around curling.

“I’m fortunate enough that I have really good family support and I now have been focusing on curling. That has definitely helped me mentally and physically, making sure I’m getting my rest and things like that, to prepare myself for these events.”

Well-rested or not, Einarson and her teammates are to travel to Sweden on March 12 in preparation for the world championship.

“We’re feeling really good about it,” Einarson said. “We’re just going to go there and enjoy every single moment.

“We don’t always get to do this, so we’re just going to embrace every single moment.”