Colleen Jones, curling legend and trailblazer, passes away at 65

Sports fans love their stars. Perhaps that is why, when a nation loses one of them through death, the impact is felt so deeply.

So it has been with the news that Colleen Jones, a two-time world and six-time Canadian women’s curling champion skip, passed away at age 65 in Maders Cove, N.S., after a lengthy fight with cancer.

 The news of her death sent shockwaves through the Canadian curling community and, in particular, the people of Nova Scotia. There’s an undeniable sense of pride that comes with cheering on the provincial hero. To Bluenosers everywhere, Jones was “their girl” who raised the profile of sports in the province to the highest level with her national and international achievements.

To underline the impact of her death on the people of Nova Scotia, it’s worth noting that in 2018, Jones finished second to NHL star Sidney Crosby in a listing of the greatest 15 athletes in Nova Scotia’s history.

Her death was on the grieving level of another great Canadian female curler, Regina’s Sandra Schmirler, who passed away in 2000 at age 36 of cancer.

Kim Kelly, her longtime teammate and friend, said Jones’ on-ice resume speaks for itself. And the results were a product of her absolute devotion to the sport.

“It was in her DNA . . . it was all-consuming,” said Kelly, who was attending the afternoon draw Tuesday at the Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials because she knew that Jones would say, ‘what the hell, you should be at the game.’ 

“Her whole life was built around curling. She said she met her husband, had her kids around curling, her friends were the curling world, she wouldn’t have the job she had if it wasn’t for curling. It was all she was about.

“I don’t know if there’s another curler who can say that.”

Kim said Jones expected a lot from herself and teammates. “There was fierceness and rigidity there. Off the ice she was the exact opposite. She had so much compassion. That wasn’t allowed to come out in her competitive self.”

Jones and Nova Scotia curling might as well be synonymous. A member of a large curling family, she found competitive success early after joining the Mayflower Curling Club at age 14.

She burst big time on the curling scene in 1979, at the tender age of 19, when she won her first of 16 provincial women’s titles, plus a silver medal at that year’s Canada Games.

At 22, Jones became the youngest skip to win a Scotties Tournament of Hearts title when her team emerged as champions at the 1982 event in Regina with a support cast of third Kay Smith, second Monica Jones, and lead Barb Jones-Gordon.

That was the start of her amazing run where Jones chewed up the opposition as vigorously as she did her favourite stick of gum.

She didn’t do it alone, of course, and the contributions of her new teammates, third Kim Kelly, second Mary-Anne Arsenault and lead Nancy Delahunt helped set a standard for excellence in women’s curling, winning five Canadian women’s championships in six years, and four in a row. Their national titles were won in 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004.

The team also went on to win two world titles in 2001 and 2004.

Gerry Peckham, who served as Director of High Performance for Curling Canada for many years, was a big Team Jones cheerleader.

“I was always a real fan of the Colleen Jones team,” he said. “They didn’t travel as much and play as much as some other teams but their approach to training and willingness to be students of the game was cutting edge as far as an approach to elite play.”

At one point, Jones held the record for most Scotties Tournament of Hearts wins by a skip at 152 before it was eclipsed by Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones in 2021.

Much later, Jones showed she hadn’t lost her competitive thirst and appeared in four Canadian Women’s Senior Curling Championships, winning it in 2016 and then the world title the following year.

Jones also won a couple of Canadian Mixed titles in 1993 and 1999, and last appeared nationally, playing lead for Nova Scotia’s Paul Flemming, at the 2023 Canadian Mixed in Swift Current, Sask., at the age of 63.

The people of Nova Scotia got to know Jones on a deeper level — through their TV screens. She had worked as a reporter and weather presenter with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Halifax. 

“There’s only been three things in my life and that’s my family and curling and CBC — those have been the priorities and that’s what I’ve always done,” Jones said in the months ahead of her retirement in 2023.

Jones also worked as a television sideline reporter for curling events at the 2014, 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Jones had health problems before. In 2010, what she thought was a cold or flu turned out to be bacterial meningitis, a life-threatening condition.

The health scare prompted Jones to collaborate with Toronto writer Perry Lefko to produce “Throwing Rocks at Houses,” where she opened up about her journey as a curling superstar, CBC broadcaster, and mother of two sons.

It was her second book. She was also behind Curling Secrets, an instructional guide to curling for novices and experts.

Jones went on to garner numerous accolades during her career, including being appointed to the Order of Canada (2022), named to Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame (2016), and inducted into The Canadian Curling Hall of Fame (1989).