She may be best known as a world-class curler, but Kerri Einarson spends her off-season facing challenges of an entirely different kind than those on the rink.
Einarson, who lives in Gimli, Man., represented the province in this year’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts, taking home the Canadian championship in February. Her team was set to compete internationally in the 2020 World Women’s Curling Championship before it was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns.
Since then, she has become very familiar with the pandemic. Einarson’s off-ice career is in the health-care industry, working at a personal care home where she’s become accustomed to taking extra precautions to help keep residents and staff safe.
“It’s definitely scary coming into work because these residents are more at risk than I would say our staff are,” Einarson told 680 CJOB’s Sports Show.
“You definitely have to be careful that you’re doing your best not to come in sick and stay home if you’re not feeling well… I’m constantly washing my hands, constantly putting hand sanitizer on them. They’re looking a little rough.”
Although Einarson is holed up in the Interlake community, working an essential job and trying her best to act as a teacher for her daughters, she said she’s still making time to focus on her sport — with the hopes of defending her national title if and when restrictions are lifted.
“We’ve actually had a lot of Zoom meetings with my team, just keeping in touch and just kind of playing it by ear and seeing what our schedule will look like,” she said.
“I could see (the pandemic) hurting a lot of the smaller spiels. It will be tough. I’m hoping it doesn’t, but it’s not looking so great at the moment.
“I’m definitely lucky that I can still continue at my job and have some income, so that’s good. Definitely nice that I get to come to work and not just having to sit at home every single day.”
Still, for the skip of a team that was still competing — in Russia — at this time last year, it’s been a difficult transition.
“We have just built a house this summer, which was nice — give us more space — we have a basement, and I’ve been working on setting up a gym in my basement, so I’ve been working on that and making sure I’m staying in shape and keeping up on my fitness,” Einarson said.
“I work a lot on my legs and my core strength. I do some upper body but I don’t necessarily need upper body strength… definitely focused more on my legs and keeping that good leg drive I need to throw big weight shots.”