For a curling team to be successful, all four players need to be playing in unison. But ultimately the winning and losing of points comes down to the final two stones thrown by the skip.
And few in Canadian curling have done it as well as Colleen Jones.
Colleen Jones was voted No. 2 in the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame’s Top 15 poll recognizing the province’s all-time greatest athletes. (TIM KROCHAK / File)
Jones has skipped teams to 21 appearances at the Canadian Scotties Tournament of Hearts championship.
Her teams have won six of those national championships. Her first Canadian title came in 1982, at the age of 22, with her Mayflower team of Kay Smith, Monica Jones and Barbara Jones-Gordon.
It took 17 years to get the next championship. After that, the Nova Scotia team seemed unstoppable.
Starting in 1999 the Jones team of Kim Kelly, Mary-Anne Waye (Arsenault) and Nancy Delahunt, went on to win five of the next six Hearts championships, including an unprecedented four in a row from 2001-2004.
During the historic run the Jones’ foursome also won world championships in 2001 and 2004, capturing silver in 2003.
For her excellence on the ice, Jones was voted No. 2 in the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame’s Top 15 poll recognizing the province’s all-time greatest athletes. The No. 1 athlete in the history of the province will be unveiled on Monday, Dec. 18.