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Canada’s Kerri Einarson has once again won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
Einarson defeated Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes 4-3 in 11 ends in Sunday’s final at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre.
She won it when Lawes failed to take out Einarson’s lone rock on the button with her hammer throw.
It is Einarson’s fifth title and first since 2023.
Either Einarson or Rachel Homan have been finalists at the Tournament of Hearts for the past 10 years.
Homan, the reigning national champion, is missing this year’s event because she’s representing Canada at the Milan Cortina Olympics. Canada’s first game of the Olympics tournament is against Denmark on Feb. 12.
Lawes had not reached the final of the Canadian women’s curling championship since she won the 2015 title as the third on Jennifer Jones’s Manitoba rink.
Lawes’s final stone in the second end was light, allowing Einarson to pick up an easy steal for the first point of the game.
A second Lawes error helped Einarson earn another point. The Manitoba skip tried a short-angle runback in the fourth end but her stone failed to roll deep enough into the house, leading to another Einarson steal for a 2-0 Canada lead.
Lawes tied it 2-2 in the sixth thanks to an Einarson mistake. The Canada skipped missed her takeout attempt with the final stone of the end, sailing it through the house, allowing Lawes to make an easy draw for two.
In the seventh, Einarson’s double takeout to try and clear the house was nearly successful but one of Lawes’s rocks barely held on to the red ring for a single and Manitoba’s first lead of the game.
After two blank ends, Lawes had four rocks in the house but Einarson raised her own team’s stone to force the extra end.
Earlier Sunday, Einarson beat Alberta’s Selena Sturmay 12-5 in the semifinal.
She had to take the long way to the final after Lawes routed Einarson 10-2 in eight ends in the 1/2 Page playoff on Saturday.
“We definitely don’t do things the easy way on this team,” joked Einarson between the two draws. “We’ve been through the semifinal the majority of the time, I think.
“It’s nice to get our feet under us and get used to the ice instead of sitting around all day.”
Sturmay’s bronze was the first time she has reached the podium at the Tournament of Hearts. She said that she learned a lot over the course of the event.
“I’m just really proud of the girls for showing up all week,” said Sturmay, who is seven months pregnant. “You don’t come to this event to lose and I just want to say thank you to the girls for playing as well as they did.
“At the end of the day, I think we just need to go in debrief, reflect on it.”
