Chelsea Carey

Chelsea Carey
Carey holds the broom at the 2013 Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Classic while Eve Muirhead watches.
Born	(1984-09-12) September 12, 1984 Winnipeg, Manitoba
Team
Curling club	Fort Rouge CC, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Skip	Chelsea Carey
Third	Kristy McDonald
Second	Kristen Foster
Lead	Lindsay Titheridge
Career
Hearts appearances	1 (2014)
World Championship appearances	0
Top CCA ranking	5th (2010-11, 2012-13)
Grand Slam victories	1: (Manitoba Lotteries: 2010)

Chelsea Carey (born September 12, 1984 in Winnipeg, Manitoba) is a Canadian curler and 2014 Manitoba Provincial Women's Curling Champion.

Career

Early career

Carey curled in six provincial junior championships, but did not win the event. She did win the 2000 Juvenile Provincial championship which she followed up with a silver medal at the 2001 Canadian Juvenile championship. She was also the Manitoba high school provincial champion in 2002. Due to her tenacity and skill on the ice, she has been referred to as "The Annihilator".

Carey has won a number of World Curling Tour events including the 2005 Manitoba Lotteries Wheat City Curling Classic, the 2006 Interlake Pharmacy Classic (playing third for Barb Spencer in both events), and the Interlake Pharmacy Classic again in 2009, culminating with winning the 2009 Manitoba Curling Tour Championship.

In October 2010 Carey skipped her team to their first Grand Slam victory. Carey defeated Cathy Overton-Clapham 7-3 at the Fort Rouge Curling Club in Winnipeg, Manitoba to claim first place in the Manitoba Lotteries Women's Curling Classic.^[1]

Post-Grand Slam achievements

2011 marked the coming out party for the Carey rink, who stepped onto the national stage in a big way during the 2011-2012 curling season. In December 2011 Carey emerged victorious in the Manitoba Curling Tour (MCT) Championships in Morris, Manitoba. Her rink overcame an early round robin loss, winning 5 games in a row to reach the finals where they defeated Kim Link 6-4.^[2] This came on the heels of a second place finish in the 2011 Canada Cup of Curling in Cranbrook, B.C., where Carey's rink lost the final 9-4 to Jennifer Jones in what was the first national television appearance for Carey and her team. With 95.7 CTRS points, Carey and her team finished 6th in 2011-2012 CTRS points^[3] In recognition of their strong season, Carey's rink was named the 2011 World Curling Tour Breakthrough Team of the Year.^[4]

In 2012-2013 Carey and her team continued their strong play, placing second in the Colonial Square Ladies Classic^[5] and continuing to play well through the early part of the 2012-2012 season winning the 2012 Red Deer Curling Classic by defeating Jennifer Jones 7-3 in the final.^[6] They followed this with another finals appearance two weeks later in the ROGERS Masters of Curling in Brantford, Ontario being defeated 8-3 in the final by Rachel Homan^[7] and also collected a 3rd place finish in the Pomeroy Inn & Suites Prairie Showdown en route to accumulating 136.0 CTRS points in the 2012-2013 curling season, good for a 5th place finish in the standings^[8]

Carey has twice come extremely close to winning a Manitoba provincial women's championship. She lost the 2011 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts final to Cathy Overton-Clapham after going 7-0 in the round robin. She again made the finals of the 2012 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts after going 5-2 in the round robin. This was the closest Carey has come to winning a provincial championship, losing the final 6-5 on a heartbreaking last rock thrown by Jennifer Jones. At the 2013 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts, her team placed fourth.

2013-14 Gains and Manitoba Scotties Championship success

The consistent performance by Carey and her team from 2011 to 2013 allowed them to accumulate enough CTRS points to qualify as a direct entry to the 2013 Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings, the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials held in Carey's home town of Winnipeg, Manitoba in December 2013.^[9] The victorious team would represent Canada at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. At the Olympic Trials the team competed admirably to a 4-3 record, setting up a tie breaker game against Sherry Middaugh, but would lose resulting in a fourth place finish.^[10]

January 2014 brought yet another opportunity for Carey and her squad consisting of lead Lindsay Titheridge, second Kristen Foster, and third Kristy McDonald to chase a Manitoba provincial women's curling championship at the 2014 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Virden, Manitoba. Carey and her rink came in as the first seed in the tournament, with team Jennifer Jones absent in preparation for their own play in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games. Carey and her team finished the round robin 5-2, an identical record to veteran skip Darcy Robertson, setting up a tie-breaker game with Robertson for the right to enter the playoffs.

Carey and her rink prevailed over Darcy Robertson 7-3 in the tie-breaker game, advancing to the 2 vs. 2 playoff game against another Manitoba Scotties veteran, Janet Harvey. The team won that game 8-2 advancing them to the semi-final where they again won to go on and play in the final. The semi-final brought Carey a small measure of revenge, as Barb Spencer had eliminated Carey from the Manitoba Scotties playoffs the previous year. This was the third Manitoba Provincial Scotties Final in the last four years for the Carey rink. In the final Carey and her team won 6-2 over Kerry Einarson, running her out of rocks in the 10th end. This clinched their first Manitoba Provincial Scotties Championship and the right to represent Manitoba at the 2014 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Montreal, Quebec.^{[11] [12]}

Personal

Carey is the daughter of former Brier champion Dan Carey who won playing third for Vic Peters in 1992. She posed for the 2011 "Women of Curling Calendar".^[13] She has a Bachelors of Commerce from the University of Manitoba and previously worked as a marketing representative for Sealy Canada.

Grand Slam record

Former Events

External links

• Chelsea Carey on the World Curling Tour database

References