Tim Hortons Curling Trials Profile - Team Jones

With the Tim Hortons Curling Trials quickly approaching, TSN.ca will profile one men’s team and one women’s team each day before the first rocks fly on Nov. 20 at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon.

Team Jennifer Jones

The Lineup

Skip: Jennifer Jones (Age 47)
Third: Kaitlyn Lawes (32)
Second: Jocelyn Peterman (28)
Lead: Lisa Weagle (36) / Dawn McEwen (41)
Coach: Viktor Kjell (36)

Curling Club: St. Vital Curling Club in Winnipeg

2021-22 Season

Events: 6
Record: 25-12
CTRS Ranking: 2

Highlights: Team Jones has qualified for the playoffs in every event they’ve played aside from the Grand Slam's National in early November. In October at the Masters, also on the Grand Slam Tour, Jones lost her two first game in the triple-knockout tournament, but proceeded to reel off five straight to punch a ticket to the final against Tracy Fleury. Team Jones would lose 9-7 in a back-and-forth affair. Earlier this season, Team Jones made the semifinals at back-to-back bonspiels in Oakville, losing to Suzanne Birt and Hollie Duncan. 

How They Got Here

Qualified for the Tim Hortons Curling Trials via Curling Canada’s Canadian Team Ranking System.

Trials Schedule

Nov. 20 – Krista McCarville
Nov. 21 – Jacqueline Harrison, Laura Walker
Nov. 22 – Casey Scheidegger
Nov. 23 – Kerri Einarson
Nov. 24 – Kelsey Rocque
Nov. 25 - Rachel Homan
Nov. 26 – Tracy Fleury

Expert Analysis from TSN's Cheryl Bernard

Team Jones will win the Trials if…

"You can NEVER count out Jenn Jones in a major event, and certainly not the Trials. When you have played the game for a long time and have been there and 'done that' it can be tough to get up for the everyday events. This is certainly not an everyday event and as an Olympic Gold medalist – she knows what is at stake. Complacency will not be an issue. This team will win the Trials if the middle of the lineup sets up Jenn for some easier shots and guards against her having to make the 'hero' type shots too often. And if Jenn can limit her aggressive style of play for the first few games, until her team settles in, she will avoid getting her back against the wall too early at the Trials."

Trials Experience

Six-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts champion Jennifer Jones will have the most Olympic Trials experience by far in Saskatoon.

A few months after making “The Shot” to win the 2005 Scotties, Jones played in her first Trials. The then-31-year-old went 5-4 in the round robin and missed the playoff tiebreaker.

Four years and two Canadian titles later, Jones returned to the Trials, this time with Dawn McEwen throwing lead stones. The week didn’t go as planned as Jones and company finished with a 2-5 showing. Team Jones won a third straight Scotties a few months following the disappointment at the Trials, but the Winnipeg skip shocked many at the end of the season by cutting long-time third Cathy Overton-Clapham and replacing her with Kaitlyn Lawes, a promising young curler who was coming off two Canadian junior titles as a skip.

The move didn’t add any more Canadian titles to Jones’ mantle over the next quadrennial, but none of that mattered by the time the 2013 Olympic Trials rolled around in their hometown of Winnipeg.

After a strong round robin, Jones earned a bye straight to the final where she would lead her team to an 8-4 victory over Sherry Middaugh, earning the right to represent Canada at the Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

Jones, Lawes and McEwen led their position in shooting percentage for the tournament with second Jill Officer shooting a scorching 99 per cent in the final.

At the Games, Team Jones captured the gold medal for the Red and White with an undefeated record of 11-0, the first women’s team to accomplish that feat in Olympic history.

Team Jones had the exact same lineup at the 2017 Trials in Ottawa and got off to a great start by winning their first five games of the round robin. However, things changed quickly for the Manitoba foursome, losing their last three preliminary games before dropping the semi-final to rival Rachel Homan, 6-3.

Jones’ current second Jocelyn Peterman competed in her first Trials in 2017 as part of Chelsea Carey’s team that qualified for the finals.

Lisa Weagle will also join Team Jones in Saskatoon. This will be her third straight Trials appearance after representing Canada at the Olympics with Team Homan in 2018.

Last Four Years

Jones won her sixth and most recent Tournament of Hearts in Penticton, B.C., in 2018. Shannon Birchard spared for Lawes as she was competing with John Morris at the Olympics in the debut of the mixed doubles event.

The win tied Jones with Nova Scotia’s Colleen Jones for the most Scotties titles of all-time.

Lawes was back in the fold a few months later as Team Jones captured their first world championship as a foursome, going a perfect 14-0 in North Bay, Ont., and

beating Sweden’s Team Anna Hasselborg, fresh off winning gold at the Olympics, in the final. It was also the swan song for Officer, who took a step back from curling after that season following a 14-year run with Jones.

Peterman, who had won the 2016 Scotties with Carey, took over second duties for the 2018-19 campaign. The new foursome found some early season success at the Canada Cup in Estevan, Sask., as Jones won the event for a fourth time after beating Kerri Einarson in the final.

Team Jones represented Canada as the defending champs at the 2019 Scotties in Sydney, N.S. The week on the East Coast didn’t go as planned for Jones, however, as the skip missed the playoffs for the first time in her 14 Scotties appearances.

It wasn’t all bad news as during that week Jones was named that greatest Canadian female curler of all-time as part of TSN’s Canada’s Greatest Curlers project.

Jones returned to the final four in 2020 as a wild-card team but lost the 1 vs. 2 game to Kerri Einarson and the semi-final to Homan.

In the summer, Team Jones added All-Star Weagle to the squad after she was dispatched from Team Homan. The idea was that they would work as a five-person team. Weagle ended up getting all the playing time at the bubble Scotties in Calgary as McEwen stayed home with a pregnancy.

With their tweaked lineup, Team Jones got into a playoff tiebreaker with Alberta’s Laura Walker, losing 9-8 in a shootout after Walker scored three in the 10th end.

Earlier in the week, Jones became the career leader in Scotties wins with 153.

"My dad always loved the records," Jones said after the win over Newfoundland and Labrador. "He always followed all the records. I know he would be watching from above, very, very proud.

"It definitely means something to me. As you kind of approach the end of your career, just to be remembered for doing something that you love is pretty remarkable."

Jones did not win a Grand Slam in the last quadrennial.