MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — ‘Friendly Manitoba’ might be divided on Sunday night.
One of the slogans for the province could go out of service for three hours when two Manitoba rinks square off in the final of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
Team Kerri Einarson booked a spot in the championship game with a 12-5 win over Alberta’s Team Selena Sturmay in the semifinal on Sunday afternoon.
“Yeah, definitely a better game than yesterday,” said Einarson post-game. “Got off to a good start, just figuring out the ice and got used to it.”
The Team Canada skip, who won four Scotties crowns in a row from 2020 to 2023, will battle the unbeaten Team Kaitlyn Lawes in the title tilt. The Winnipeg-born Lawes handed Einarson her only two losses this week — 10-2 in Saturday night’s Page 1-2 game and 9-4 in the round-robin.
Einarson’s team quickly wiped Saturday’s game from their memory.
“It’s one really bad game, you know and that happens, that’s curling,” the skip said. “It happens all the time and we just got to re-focus and we’ve been in this situation before many times. This team is strong and we got each other's backs no matter what.”
With the Winnipeg Jets in the midst of a disappointing season and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers having failed to reach the Grey Cup at home in November, the curling showdown will be a nice change of sporting pace for Manitoba.
Einarson lost last year’s final to Ottawa’s Rachel Homan, who has captured the past two Scotties titles. Homan is not here this week because she is heading to Italy to represent Canada at the Winter Olympics.
This will mark the 10th year in a row that at least one of Einarson or Homan competes in the Scotties final.
Einarson, from Selkirk, Man., won her fifth Scotties semifinal in a row with a bounce-back performance against Sturmay, something Einarson feels will help her team in the final.
“We’ve been through the semifinal majority of the time I think, so yeah, it’s nice to get our feet under us and get used to the ice instead of sitting around all day.”
A tap for three in the second end following an opening-end blank gave Einarson a lead the team would not relinquish. Third Val Sweeting, second Laura Walker and lead Karlee Burgess round out the roster.
Sturmay cut the deficit to 5-3 with a deuce in the fifth and put more pressure on Einarson in the sixth. But the Alberta skip just overcurled a freeze with her final stone, and Einarson followed with a draw to catch most of the button for two and a 7-3 lead.
Einarson scored five in the ninth end to end it.
Despite the loss, Sturmay was proud of her team’s effort this week.
“Really proud of the girls for you know showing up all week. You don’t come to this event to lose,” said an emotional Sturmay. “Just want to say thank you to the girls for playing as well as they did, but, yeah, at the end of the day I just think we need to go and debrief, reflect on it and the reality of it is we are quite a young team, we’re about 10 years younger than them (Einarson). I think we just need to take it with a grain of salt and celebrate the victories a little bit.”
One person that is proud of Sturmay is her husband, Keaton Boyd, who was seen on the television broadcast watching the game with his phone up to his ear to hear the commentary, something the Alberta skip noticed as well.
The couple is expecting its first child in April.
“It’s funny, he’s not a curler at all, did not really watch the game before we started dating and now he’s 100 per cent into it,” said Sturmay. “It’s just really special to have somebody who believes in you and supports you. I'm just really thankful for him.”
Einarson curled only 45 per cent in the blowout loss Saturday against Lawes, her lowest percentage in 110 career Scotties games. She finished at 88 per cent in the semifinal.
Lawes is looking for her second career Scotties title after winning in 2015 as third for Jennifer Jones.
The Edmonton-born Sturmay, 27, posted her best career finish at the Scotties with the bronze medal. The skip is now 1-9 all-time against Einarson.
Sunday night’s winner will represent Canada at the world women’s curling championship in Calgary in March.
Regardless of who wins on Sunday night, it will mark the national-best 17th Scotties champion from Manitoba, five more than Saskatchewan.
— With files from Justin Arenburg
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