Dream chaser

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This article was published 24/02/2017 (2615 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. CATHARINES, Ont. – In the euphoric moments after the win, before it had fully sunk in, Michelle Englot rushed to greet her son at the edge of the rink. They tapped fists, and embraced; for a long moment, that’s how they stayed.

There’s no better image to summarize what she’s accomplished this week at Meridian Centre – except one in which she gets to swap her buffalo jacket, for the maple leaf. This weekend, she will get her chance to fight for it.

For teams that reach this point, it’s always a long journey. For 53-year-old Englot, it’s been longer than most. She started chasing the maple leaf 29 years ago; now, in her eighth Scotties appearance, she is just one win away.

“It is surreal, for sure. It’s been such an amazing week. We’ve had such a great time. We’ve enjoyed every aspect of this event. We’ve had great fans, and we’ve played well on the ice”
– Michell Englot after defeating Rachel Homan’s Ontario rink for the second time in two days, Friday

All she had to do to get there, was beat Ontario’s dominant Rachel Homan twice in two nights. No problem, right?

“It is surreal, for sure,” Englot said, beaming after the 9-8 win. “It’s been such an amazing week. We’ve had such a great time. We’ve enjoyed every aspect of this event. We’ve had great fans, and we’ve played well on the ice.”

That was true on Friday night. Team Manitoba came out firing against Homan, wielding their hammer for a deuce in the first end. For the rest of the match they held control, forcing tough shots and making some beauties of their own.

For 10 ends, Manitoba never took off the pressure. That’s the key to their two wins against Ontario this week, Englot said later: if you want to beat Homan, you have to push her into trying the shots that even she can’t always make.

“We do put the pressure on her,” Englot said. “That’s basically why I think we can keep pace with them. We couldn’t play a wide-open hit game against them, probably. So we just focused on playing our aggressive game.

“Eventually, you hope for a miss,” she added. “You don’t always get them against her, though.”

They may have to do it again. While Team Manitoba waits for Sunday’s championship game, Homan will reload to face either defending champ Chelsea Carey or Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville in Saturday’s semifinal.

This is how the betting line goes: if Homan, the top-ranked curler in the world, claws her way into the final, it seems impossible to beat her three times in a row. Of course, it said Manitoba couldn’t do it twice in two nights, either.

But all week, the buffalo gals defied expectations at Meridian Centre. They won all but one of the 12 games they’ve played; they won in all different ways. They won by tenacious comebacks, and blowouts, and smart, savvy games.

Now, riding a wave of national buzz, Manitoba could take it all the way to the top – and what a story that would be.

“It’s kind of funny, because we all talked about having the belief that we will win,” Wilson said. “It’s one thing to believe you can do it, it’s another thing to do it and be there in the end. But we’ve all been playing so well.”

For the most part, the surprise of this Scotties was that there weren’t many surprises. Northwest Territories skip Kerry Galusha’s spirited run came close; she still missed playoffs, though she did win the Scotties’ sportsmanship award.

Or, there was Quebec’s Eve Belisle, who quietly built a 7-4 record while the spotlight roamed elsewhere. That was almost good enough for a tiebreaker; some years, it would have put her in the playoffs. Not this time, though.

No, this time the final four shook out exactly they way they were supposed to, on paper: Englot, Homan, Carey, McCarville. It was the order in which they finished that had fans buzzing; much of that centered on Manitoba.

There’s much to like on this team. Cameron was sensational for much of the week, particularly in the games against Homan. The front end of Westcott and Wilson was solid; the team was notably consistent, a well-oiled machine.

At the heart of it all is Englot herself – and what’s most remarkable is how, nearly three decades after she went 9-2 in her 1988 Scotties debut, the seven-time Saskatchewan champ and now-Manitoba skip has hit a new career peak.

 

“Michelle is so hot. She’s just on fire right now, it’s so exciting.”

– Manitoba second Leslie Wilson

 

If she can win it all on Sunday night, at 53 she will be the oldest skip ever to win the Scotties. (After reporters informed her of that fact on Friday, Englot laughed, and then considered: “I’d be pretty proud of that,” she said.)

Even in curling, where long careers can meander through multiple twist endings, there aren’t many comebacks this thrilling. And to think, she could do it in the last colours a Saskatchewan girl ever expected: black and gold.

That only makes the story even richer, in a way. Going into the Manitoba playdowns, Englot was seeded third but not especially favoured; that competition already had Jennifer Jones and Kerri Einarson, Jones’ recent heir apparent.

But while those teams fell out in the playoffs, Englot steered her team steady to win. Once, her name was near-synonymous with Saskatchewan curling; suddenly, she would carry the banner of Manitoba into a national run.

That required an adjustment period for both skip and fans; but now that the story is familiar, it makes perfect sense.

Before the 2017 Scotties began, many Manitobans didn’t know Englot very well, not the way Saskatchewan curling fans did. To others, she was almost too familiar: a low-key veteran in a sport filling up with ambitious young shooters.

This week in St. Catharines, both of those perceptions were shattered. As fans followed Manitoba’s dream run, they began to buzz about Englot’s rise. One common sentiment, that floated online: “I’m beginning to love this team.”

It was the skip that helped sell them. Englot is not brassy, but she’s tenacious. Her son Derek Schneider called her the most competitive person he’s ever known; Wilson thinks Manitobans are learning she’s just a nice person.

There is something else. Maybe, it’s that many women can see their reflection in what she’s done. Englot never did get famous. For three decades, she just kept keepin’ on: champion, busy professional, single mom to two sons.

Maybe that history helped her, at this Scotties. Englot was sharp on the ice, but she wasn’t perfect; she had her fair share of soft shots, and weak starts. But when she stumbled, she shook it off quickly. She never came undone.

That’s what three decades of experience at this level can bring. It’s why the Manitobans called her to skip in the first place, a decision that looks better each day. “Her experience is shining through right now,” Wilson said, simply.

Now, they’re nearing the end of the first part of their journey. Whatever happens on Sunday, the story will go on: this team was built to take a run at the Olympic trials. Winning a Canadian championship would be the cherry on top.

For Englot, perhaps that’s especially true. She’s been chasing this dream for a long time, since before third Cameron was born. She chased it even when it seemed out of reach. Now, she could be just one win away from living it.

“It would be incredible,” Englot said. “I have put a lot of time into (the game). I have such a solid team. I’m just hoping to stay the course and stay focused and relaxed, and come out (on Sunday) and do what we do.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca