Sunday, December 14, 2014

Jones rink deserves team of the year award

In the coming weeks, the Canadian Press will announce its sports award winners. There are winners announced for male, female and team of the year.

Earlier this week, the Lou Marsh Award was handed out to bobsledder Kaillie Humphries. That drew some criticism from many who felt that hockey player Drew Doughty should have won. Don Cherry was one of the most vocal in that camp. Of course most of the folks complaining, such as Cherry, are hockey pundits. I'm sure there weren't many in the bobsleigh camp who were hoping for Doughty.

Nothing wrong with that but it shows that we all have some bias towards the teams that we see/cover most often.

While fully admitting that, when the team of the year is announced, it's my belief that it should go to the Jennifer Jones team which won gold in Sochi. As those of us closely aligned to the roaring game, of course, this seems an obvious choice. Jones and the team of Dawn McEwen, Jill Officer and Kaitlyn Lawes ran through the field at the Winter Games, going undefeated to capture the gold. It was a truly magnificent performance.

Others who will no doubt be up for the award will be the men's and women's Olympic hockey teams, the Calgary Stampeders and also Brad Jacobs' team.

CP has handed out this award since 1966 and only two curling rinks have won it. It's obviously hard for a curling team to stand out; Canadian curlers are expected to win all the time so it's not always big news to those not that close to the sport.

The only curling rinks named winners of this award were the Sandra Schmirler team in 1998 and the 2006 Brad Gushue team.

Do you feel the Jones rink deserves to win this time?

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