Jones heads up Winnipeg slide

So was that the most shocking loss you’ve ever seen from a team skipped by Jennifer Jones? Seven points stolen? Four of those in one end?

Yikes!

As the Canadian Press detailed, it was pretty ugly, yet the lawyer from Horseshoe Valley Winnipeg kept her outlook positive.

“We just missed a couple of bad shots and lost control of the game,” said Jones, who istrying to claim the one prize that has eluded her team, the right to represent Canada at the Olympics.

“We battled back and won one today, this morning and kind of let one slip away tonight but we’ll come beck sharper tomorrow.”

The loss was another kick in the groin to the hometown rinks, who, as Paul Wiecek points out in the Winnipeg Free Press, are not exactly lighting it up. And all this coming just as the province unveiled a new curling-themed licence plate:

The dominating home ice advantage the four Winnipeg teams were hoping the MTS Centre would provide at the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings has mostly failed to materialize. 

With a record of 4-6 through the first 10 games, the four Winnipeg teams skipped byJennifer Jones, Chelsea Carey, Jeff Stoughton and Mike McEwen have hardly been dominating their out-of-province competition despite the advantage of large partisan crowds. 

But the two Manitoba-based women's teams have at least been finding other ways to win, something their 0-4 male counterparts cannot claim this morning. 

And while the locals are struggling, it seems just about everyone is battling the ice, which has not up to standards. Rachel Homan pointed that out in Wiecek’s piece:

"You can't play in the middle the last end -- I had to throw it to the wings," said Homan. 

"It's just sludge, you can't throw it hard enough. But that's alright --we'll learn from that and move on the next game."

On the men’s side, the defending gold medalist is off to a fast start at 2-0. According to Cam Cole in PostMedia, the new relationship between Kevin Martin and Dave Nedohin is working out primarily because Nedohin has been doing his Marcel Marceau routine.

“Getting along has been really easy. Because Dave, like when he curled with Randy, doesn’t say much,” Martin said. 

“If you watch, he’s always at the other end. If I need him to look at angles or whatever, it’s ‘Dave!’ And I wave him to come down, but otherwise … maybe there’s even a little less (feedback) than I’d like sometimes.” 

The Morris relationship was noisier. 

“Well, not at the start. But near the end, yeah,” said Martin. “You don’t want too much chatter, I don’t think.”