Fyfe drums up enthusiasm despite slow start to season

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This article was published 02/12/2016 (2695 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — Success at the next level is never easy to handle and Liz Fyfe admits it’s something she and the rest of her curling team have, at times, struggled with.

That’s not to say, however, it’s not been worth it.

“It’s been a little bit tough, I would say, just because we were kind of in the underdog position for so long and then I think people started to notice us, so people wanted to beat us a little more and they were playing really well against us,” said the 29-year-old second on Kerri Einarson’s team. “It’s been a little bit of a tricky transition, but we’ve just been trying to keep working as hard as we have been and see what happens.”

Fyfe, along with Einarson, third Selena Kaatz and lead Kristin MacCuish have made appearances in several marquee curling events since winning the Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Beausejour last January.

After losing the two previous provincial women’s finals — 5-2 to Jennifer Jones in Winkler in 2015 and 6-2 to Chelsea Carey the year before in Virden — Einarson and company knocked off the Granite club’s Kristy McDonald 7-4 to clinch that elusive national Scotties berth.

Manitoba went 7-4 at the Scotties in Grande Prairie, Alta., before falling 7-5 to Northern Ontario in the semifinal and 8-7 to Jones and Team Canada in the bronze-medal game.

Team Einarson has played in seven World Curling Tour events thus far this season, including a pair of Grand Slam events, but has failed to reach the playoffs in any of them. The Winnipeg foursome has earned just $4,500 and sits 56th on the women’s WCT money list.

“It’s been an amazing experience so far,” Fyfe said. “We’ve got to play in things that we never thought that we would be playing in at this time, so it’s been incredible.”

Kaatz agreed.

“Winning provincials was a big boost for us… because we had lost two before that. So to finally come out and win that was really big and then playing the Slams has been a really good experience,” she said.

“You’re playing against top teams all the time, so I’d say the Slams is really good for us.”

Another new event for Team Einarson is playing in their first Home Hardware Canada Cup of Curling, being held this week at Westman Place.

They opened with two impressive first-day wins over Val Sweeting and Rachel Homan — the last two winners — before stumbling with three consecutive losses before beating Chelsea Carey 8-6 in the final round-robin draw Friday evening.

They will play Sweeting in a tiebreaker this morning.

Despite the result, Fyfe noted the round-robin format of the Canada Cup, though quick, has been fun to tackle.

“It’s been really good,” she said. “It’s been a really good experience with all the top teams.”

— Brandon Sun