Skip to content

Familiar names pop up at Tournament of Hearts

Prominent curling bloodlines run through this year’s Canadian women’s championship.Alberta’s Chelsea Carey is the daughter of Dan Carey, who won the 1992 men’s championship playing third for Vic Peters. Her uncle Bill was Barry Fry’s third when they won the Brier in 1979.
Hanna
Ontario skip Jenn Hanna calls a shot during the 8th draw against British Columbia at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Grande Prairie

GRANDE PRAIRIE — Prominent curling bloodlines run through this year’s Canadian women’s championship.

Alberta’s Chelsea Carey is the daughter of Dan Carey, who won the 1992 men’s championship playing third for Vic Peters. Her uncle Bill was Barry Fry’s third when they won the Brier in 1979.

There is a Howard in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts for the first time. Saskatchewan third Ashley Howard is the daughter of Canadian, world and Olympic champion Russ Howard.

Her brother Steve, cousin Scott and uncle Glenn have all played in the men’s championship. Glenn and Scott are representing Ontario at the Tim Hortons Brier in Ottawa again next month.

“It took me a long time to realize I wasn’t eligible to play in the Brier and I had to find my own dream,” Ashley said.

And while she bears her married name on her Northern Ontario jacket, lead Sarah Potts is the daughter of Rick Lang. He won three Canadian championships playing third for Al Hackner and Bill Tetley.

The fathers are all in Grande Prairie with their daughters — Dan and Rick as spectators and Russ as a television commentator. Rick is one of Curling Canada’s national team coaches and oversaw the Brad Jacobs team when they won Olympic gold in 2014.

But his wife Lorraine is coaching Northern Ontario’s women at the Tournament of Hearts. So Rick is in the unfamiliar role as fan, working the region’s traditional moose-call noisemaker and wearing a furry hat at Revolution Place.

“He’s having a ball, but he’s nervous, very nervous,” Potts said. “I can totally tell when I look up at him.”

After six straight wins to open the tournament, Alberta lost 7-5 to Ontario’s Jenn Hanna on Tuesday night. Northern Ontario chased the leaders at 5-1 with a pair of wins earlier in the day. Defending champion Jennifer Jones downed Saskatchewan’s Jolene Campbell 11-5 for a third straight win after opening 1-2. Jones and Quebec’s Marie-France Larouche were both 4-2.

Campbell dropped to 4-3 alongside Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia’s Jill Brothers, who was a 7-5 winner over Prince Edward Island’s Suzanne Birt.

Ontario improved to 3-3 to sit tied with Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson, who beat Stacie Curtis of Newfoundland and Labrador 8-5.

P.E.I. fell to 2-4, New Brunswick’s Sylvie Robichaud and B.C.’s Karla Thompson were 1-5 ahead of Newfoundland at 1-6.

Carey recalls her mother Mary excitedly dragging her seven-year-old self over Regina Agridome seats to ice level when Vic Peters beat Russ Howard in the 1992 Brier final. Now 31, Carey spent her childhood in Winnipeg hanging around Dan’s curling club.

“I followed him around to every game and he told me I was crazy because I wouldn’t not go,” Carey said. “It’s like 8:30 in the morning and (his game) was out of town and I’d be up at six and want to go with him.

“His Brier final tape, I knew word for word, the commentary on it. I was obsessed from the time I was a kid.

“Just being around it that much certainly gave me something to work towards and once he finished playing, he coached me. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”

Howard, 26, says she doesn’t feel extra pressure to live up to her father’s name at the women’s championship.