NORTH BAY, Ont. — There are some moving parts to the Canadian entry at this edition of the world women’s curling championship.
Kaitlyn Lawes is back throwing third for skip Jennifer Jones after winning Olympic mixed doubles gold. Shannon Birchard moves from vice-skip to fifth after serving as a substitute at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
And Jill Officer is preparing for her final world championship as second before stepping away from competitive curling at the end of the season.
The March 17-25 competition at the North Bay Memorial Gardens will provide one last chance for this four-player lineup to win a world title together.
“We’re really excited that we have the opportunity to wear the Maple Leaf one more time with Jill and to experience that with her,” Jones said. “Obviously we’ll miss her and we love her to death.
“But right now it’s just all about enjoying the excitement of the event.”
Canada is one of the headliners in a 13-team field that includes reigning Olympic champion Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, silver medallist Eunjung Kim of South Korea and two-time world champion Binia Feltscher of Switzerland.
Round-robin play begins Saturday afternoon. The four-team Page playoff system has been scrapped this year in favour of a six-team straight-knockout format.
Jones will open against Anna Kubeskova of the Czech Republic before taking on Feltscher on Saturday night.
Officer, who plans to serve as an alternate next season, announced this month that she wouldn’t be back to play in the next quadrennial. She’ll be replaced by Jocelyn Peterman, a second on Team Chelsea Carey.
“I’m just looking forward to going out and having fun and being grateful for all the experiences that I’ve had and that I’ve had with my team,” Officer said after the team’s one-hour practice session. “I hope that we can finish it off strong.
“But if we don’t, I can’t really complain about my career.”
Officer and Jones made their first world women’s championship appearance in 2005 with then-teammates Cathy Overton-Clapham and Cathy Gauthier. Lead Dawn McEwen, Officer and Jones won their lone world title in 2008 with Overton-Clapham and Lawes was at third when the rink won Olympic gold in 2014.
Jones, who also won world bronze in 2010 and silver in 2015, beat Kerri Einarson for her sixth national title last month to pull even with Colleen Jones for most career Scotties titles as a skip.
“She has that really wonderful glow of wanting to be the best,” said national coach Elaine Dagg-Jackson. “She just works so hard in every area to do that.”
The current four-player crew has spent the better part of eight seasons together. The team recently took a rare mid-season three-week break before resuming regular practice and training.
“We’ve had a little bit of time off, which we’re not used to,” Jones said. “So hopefully the rust will not be there for very long and we’ll start getting in a groove.”
The rest of the field includes China’s Yilun Jiang, Denmark’s Angelina Jensen, Germany’s Daniela Jentsch, Italy’s Diana Gaspari, Japan’s Tori Koana, Russia’s Victoria Moiseeva, Scotland’s Hannah Fleming and Jamie Sinclair of the United States.
If there is a tie in the standings at the end of round-robin play, head-to-head results or pre-game last shot draw distances will be used to determine playoff seeds.
The top two teams will get semifinal berths. Their opponents will be determined by qualification games (No. 3 vs. No. 6 and No. 4 vs. No. 5) on March 24.
Semifinal winners will play for gold March 25 and semifinal losers will meet for bronze earlier that day. Canada is the reigning champion after Ottawa’s Rachel Homan won gold last year in Beijing.
Canada has won gold on 16 occasions since the inaugural world women’s championship in 1979. Sweden is next with eight world titles.