One of the best seconds in women’s curling is getting her game back.
Jill Officer, a four-time national champion with Jennifer Jones, had a very late start to her season because of Camryn, her daughter born in December.
Officer’s first competition wasn’t until January, when the Jones team won the Manitoba provincial championship and a berth in the Canadian championship starting today at the Centrium.
Officer started throwing stones again just 10 days prior to the provincial championship.
“Thank god for muscle memory,” Officer says.
“That makes a big difference, especially when it comes to your feel for the game.”
Officer, 36, is considered among the best in the game at her position. A powerful sweeper and an accurate shotmaker, Officer has four times been a first-team all-star at the Canadian championship.
She and Jones have been teammates for about two decades, winning a Canadian junior championship in 1994.
Lead Dawn Askin, in 2007, and third Kaitlyn Lawes, in 2010, joined the team more recently.
Jones employed Joelle Sabourin and Jennifer Clark-Rouire as Officer’s substitutes for both domestic and international World Curling Tour events this winter.
The skip says she wasn’t concerned about messing with team chemistry or about her second’s ability to perform upon Officer’s return.
“Obviously it’s been a different year with Jill not really starting to play until January,” Jones said.
“The decision was always up to Jill whether she felt good to play. She didn’t really know until she got on the ice.
“She felt comfortable. She had a plan in place. She’d been working out and feeling great. It was a matter of how she felt when she got on the ice.
“The adjustment was easier than we thought and to have Jill come back obviously was no real adjustment at all.”
The St. Vital Curling Club team out of Winnipeg is again one of the pre-tournament favourites heading into this year’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts, along with former champion Kelly Scott of B.C., and defending champion Amber Holland from Saskatchewan.
Quebec’s Marie-France Larouche, Alberta’s Heather Nedohin, Ontario’s Tracy Horgan, Nova Scotia’s Heather-Smith Dacey, New Brunswick’s Andrea Kelly, Kim Dolan of Prince Edward Island, Heather Strong of Newfoundland and Labrador and Kerry Galusha of Yukon/Northwest Territories round out the field.
The first draw is Saturday at Westerner Park. The winners crowned Feb. 26 represent Canada at the world women’s curling championship March 17-25 in Lethbridge, Alta., and get a return trip to the 2013 Scotties Kingston, Ont.
Jones has been the most consistent winner in women’s curling in recent years. In addition to four national titles and the world championship Jones won in 2008, her team is perennially among the top money earners on the World Curling Tour.
Jones, Lawes, Officer and Askin took the hard road to the Scotties, however. Facing elimination, they won five straight games in just over 24 hours, including their final round-robin game and a tiebreaker, to take the Manitoba title.