Overton-Clapham wins showdown with former teammates
(by Jody Jewers)
If an election were held today in our fair city, Cathy Overton-Clapham would give Clifford Lee a run for his money.
Overton-Clapham, the five-time Canadian women’s curling champion let go from three-time defending Scotties Tournament of Hearts titleholder Jennifer Jones’s rink after their 2010 victory, was adopted as one of the Island’s own during the showdown between the two Winnipeg skips on Wednesday night.
Overton-Clapham got her measure of revenge with an 8-6 triumph. She was so beloved, someone in the crowd of 2,175 at the Civic Centre bellowed out “Cathy for mayor!” Repeated chants of “Cathy-O!” reverberated around the rink once she ran Jones out of rocks in the 10th end.
Photo: Manitoba skip Cathy Overton-Clapham yells at her sweepers during her game against Team Canada Wednesday night.
“I didn’t hear that,” Overton-Clapham said when asked he she had picked up on the mayoral endorsement. “But the fans were great tonight.”
They were great everywhere, apparently. A media member monitoring social networking sites during the game noted the word “Cathy” had made it into the top-10 trending topics on Twitter among Canadian-registered users.
“Nice,” Overton-Clapham said as she broke out laughing. “I want to ask TSN for a cut from the viewer audience there.”
TSN has its hype machine turned to overdrive during its setup for the evening draw, going live for the player introductions. A different team is spotlighted before the start of each draw during the tournament — and one guess as to who got the honour last night.
Overton-Clapham soaked in the loudest cheers from the crowd as her team stood at centre ice, while Jones’s club waited patiently at one end of the rink with the other teams.
They played the anthem, they shook hands and they were underway. Three TV cameras and three still photographers had their lenses pointed at Jones and Overton-Clapham as they stood near each other at one end of the ice for the opening end.
The crowd was respectful and showed no animosity toward Jones, but there was at best a smattering of applause when she made a nice shot, and nowhere near the thunderous roars Overton-Clapham was receiving.
None of the other games that were going on last night mattered. Heck, even some of the other curlers were sneaking glimpses of what was going on over at Sheet B, and many stayed after their games were over to watch the show. B.C. skip Kelly Scott came over and high-fived Overton-Clapham after she stole a point in three.
“Everyone wanted to see Cathy show up and play tonight and she did just that,” Scott said.