The big curling news this week was Jennifer Jones announcing that this season will be her last in the women’s game.
Jen is pretty much universally regarded as Canada’s greatest-ever female curler and for a lot of people, you can broaden that out to the world.
She’s certainly in the conversation.
Anette Norberg has two Olympic golds to Jen’s one, as well as a World, Olympic and European title in one season.
For longevity at the top, though, Jen is probably out on her own.
She’s been at the pinnacle of the sport for over 20 years.
When I started out I got the odd win against her on tour but not many.
She had an aura about her even back then.
That was why when I did beat Jen in a big match – the World semi-final in 2010 – it meant so much.
Jen was the first female skip to go undefeated at an Olympics in 2014 and had the highest shooting percentage for a female skip in Olympic history.
Eight years later, when I won my gold, she became Canada’s oldest female Winter Olympian ever.
And she’s won a Grand Slam this season, which shows that it’s not as if she’s fading away.
As Jen says, she’s got things she wants to do with her family and she’s already moving into a broadcasting career.
This isn’t going to be a full competitive retirement, though.
She could still be going to another Olympic Games in the mixed doubles, with her husband Brent Laing.
I’m sure there will be an element of her weighing things up and coming to the conclusion that she’ll have a better chance in that format than the team one.
I certainly wouldn’t bet against that duo coming through the Canadian Olympic trials.
I was so proud of Fay Henderson and the rest of the girls who won their first national title at the weekend.
Whatever else they go on to achieve in their curling careers, nobody will be able to take away the fact they’ve become Scottish champions.
Even though it hadn’t been a great season for them up until that point I’ve always said that one of the big reasons I agreed to help coach them was their willingness to listen and soak up any bit of advice I could give them.
Lots of things impressed me about their week.
Tactically, they called a very good game.
As skip, Fay played very well when it mattered most – in the play-off and the final.
It’s a long, long week and, for a young team, they did a great job of making sure they weren’t drained by the end of it.
From my own point of view, I came straight from the Youth Winter Olympics to Dumfries.
There’s no doubt that the role of team leader in one helped me in the role of team coach in the other.
In both positions it was about being calm, confident and in control – even when you might be feeling a bit different!
To get success in the two roles was really satisfying.
I was certainly ready to head home by Saturday, though!
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