(by GEORGE KARRYS, Special to the Toronto Sun)
Winnipeg skip Jennifer Jones slides into the Tuesday afternoon practice session at the Players’ Championship in Summerside, P.E.I. The defending champion is looking to cash in at the last major of the season. (ANIL MUNGAL / CAPITAL ONE)
There’s an awful lot on the line at this week’s Players’ Championship, which started Tuesday night on Prince Edward Island.
First are the second men’s and women’s direct berths into the 2013 Canadian Olympic trials. Edmonton’s Kevin Martin and Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones grabbed the first spots with their December victories at the Capital One Canada Cup, and the Slam in Summerside will decide the second spots by finalizing the Canadian Team Ranking System’s 2012 season.
As mentioned last week, Edmonton’s Heather Nedohin needs to win just one of her seven matches to earn the women’s CTRS spot, and that could come on Tuesday night’s opening draw against Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni.
On the men’s side, world champion Glenn Howard of Coldwater, Ont. has the CTRS title in his grasp. The only team that can stop him is skipped by Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen, who would need to win the Players’ title and hope that Howard fails to make the playoffs, ie. semifinals.
Ranking second is the cashola, and there’s lots of it. In addition to the event prize purse of $100,000 per gender (the winning teams take home $18,000 each) there’s the Capital One Cup, which awards a further $80,000 per gender for excellence in the four-event Capital One Grand Slam of Curling series.
Third is the future of the Slam circuit. Hopes are high for new Players’ sponsor Sun Life Financial to like what they see, and jump in for the 2012-13 season starting this fall. Ditto for Global Television, the new Tier 1 broadcast partner that will showcase the women’s final on Saturday and men’s final on Sunday (both at noon ET).
Fourth is the Capital One Million Dollar Button and Junior Draw to the Button sidebars — contests that are both regional (Junior) and national (Million) in scope and which give lucky folks a chance to throw a stone to the button for glory… and big bucks.
Last but not least are bragging rights, plain and simple. Martin and Jones won last year’s Players’ titles in Grand Prairie, Alta., and their rivals would like nothing better than to knock them off their perch as the golf course beckons.
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