(by Jean Mills) In her first game back at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts – this time wearing the maple leaf instead of Alberta blue and yellow – Heather Nedohin’s Team Canada quickly got a feel for the ice and triumphed 9-6 over a feisty New Brunswick team skipped by Andrea Crawford.
“The ice was really good, actually,” said Nedohin, who plays out of the Saville Sport Centre in Edmonton with Beth Iskiw, Jessica Mair and Laine Peters. “I had a good opportunity during the Hot Shots to be on that sheet. Beautiful ice for Day One.”
Team Canada scored a deuce in the second end, and Crawford took advantage of a Nedohin miss in the third end to draw for three and an early 3-2 lead.
“It was definitely a nail biter, going back and forth,” Nedohin said. “I thought New Brunswick played very well. We were behind, when they got their three, and I thought we finished strong in the later half, getting our deuce when we had the hammer.”
Crawford and her team of Rebecca Atkinson, Danielle Parsons and Jodie deSolla, who play out of the Gage Golf and Curling Club in Oromocto, came to the Scotties having gone undefeated in the New Brunswick provincial championships. She made a clutch draw in the seventh to score a single to tie the game.
“It was a good game for us to start, but we just weren’t as sharp a we’d like to be,” said Crawford. “The ice was good. We got caught a bit not throwing them crisp enough and losing our hits. That’s one thing we need to pay attention to a little bit.”
Both teams have the night off: Team Canada will meet Nova Scotia in the morning draw on Sunday, and New Brunswick will meet Saskatchewan in the afternoon.
In other Draw One action, Saskatchewan’s Jill Shumay, in her first appearance at the Scotties, came out strong against Kerry Galusha of the Northwest Territories, stealing a single in the sixth for a 4-1 lead and an eventual 7-2 win; NL’s Stacie Devereaux lost 8-1 to a hot Ontario team skipped by Ford Hot Shots winner Rachel Homan; Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones won 8-6 over Prince Edward Island, skipped by Suzanne Birt.