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allan maki

It hasn't been all easy. Along the way there was a loss to Team Canada and another to Alberta. But after 16 draws, six days and a whole lot of curling, there she is nestled atop the leaderboard at the 2012 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

If you said, "Why, that would be Jennifer Jones," you would be as dead on as one of her shots.

Once again, the pride of Manitoba women's curling is bound for the playoffs and eyeing her next opponent. It's become a time-honoured tradition. Since 2005, the celebrated skip and her rink have finished no worse than third at the Scotties, Canada's national championship in the women's game. They've won four national titles and are on course for a possible fifth. You'd have to like her chances if you took in the action Thursday at the Enmax Centrium.

In a match against a Quebec team that had won five games in a row, Jones was on her mark. She got her side out to a 2-0 lead, made it 4-2 after four ends, then cruised to a 7-4 final. The victory gave Manitoba a record of 8-2 and guaranteed Jones a spot in the 1-2 game Friday night.

According to Jones, she and her teammates had no clue how meaningful the win over Quebec was until it was neatly in the record books.

"I just found out 30 seconds ago we were playing on Friday night. So I have no idea," Jones insisted afterwards.

"Really?" an inquisitive media asked. "Was that a conscious decision then not to know what's at stake?"

"No, not at all," she answered. "A lot of times I like to know where we're at, the more pressure the better. In a round robin, it's just such a long week that if you look at the standings too often, it's just exhausting."

The more pressure the better could be the Jones rink's tag line. Heading into this Scotties, the foursome had qualified for the 2013 Olympic Trials and won the Manitoba championship by coming through the tiebreaker to reach the final, where Jones beat rival Chelsea Carey with a slick shot in the 10th end.

Did we mention that Jones was rated No. 1 in the Canadian team ranking system? There you go.

All this winning was likely spurred by what happened at the Scotties last year, when Amber Holland of Saskatchewan took the title and the trophy after Jones missed her last shot. Asked about that defeat and how it affected the rink's preparations for the 2011-12 season, Jones insisted it really didn't.

"We never really focus on last year. We always look to the future and what we want to do so we're really good at putting things behind us."

What they're best at is winning. Early here, Manitoba had its stumbles but then shrugged them off saying it never expected to go through the field without a loss. Why worry? Or look at the standings? Just curl.

The game against Quebec was testimony to that. Jones and her gang were so efficient they thwarted Quebec skip Marie-France Larouche every time she dared make a contest of it.

"I think my team played well," said Larouche, who lost in the final of the 2004 Scotties, also held in Red Deer, to another Jones, this one Colleen. "We are able to play better than that. Hopefully, we have that revenge against [Jennifer Jones]"

"This was probably our best game as a team," Jones explained. "We played a good 10 ends. We didn't take any ends off and I thought we picked up on the ice and came out and played well. But everything starts fresh Friday."

It starts with Jones, too. Her rink is performing on cue even if it has no clue as to what comes next. Then again, if you never think of losing, you're usually locked in on success.

"We knew we were in the playoffs," Jones said of the win Thursday. "I didn't realize it would clinch first until after the game. We don't really talk about it. We just come out and do our thing and play better than we had the last game and we did."

Seems to be working pretty well so far.

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