Curling

She is as familiar a face as there is in the game today, recognizable in her home town of Winnipeg and in most centres across Canada.

Yet Jennifer Jones is still a reluctant celebrity athlete. "No, no, no, no," she states emphatically while waving her hand back and forth for emphasis. "I'm not a celebrity."

But a beat later, she admits she has a hard time going to the mall because she constantly has to stop to great well-wishers. There are usually those with cameras, too, asking for a photo with the curling queen.

And a new television commercial for Scotties, the long-time sponsor of women's curling, features the skip in a checkout line at a grocery store with a cute curling twist. It launches in early December, proving her notoriety.

Such is the price of success for Jennifer Jones, the most successful and highest-profile woman player in the game today. She and her team of Cathy Overton-Clapham, Jill Officer and Dawn Askin are the favourites to win the Canadian Curling Trials next month in Edmonton and she's definitely looking forward to getting the competition started.

"We qualified almost two years ago," she said. "In some ways I don't want this run to be over but I'm also looking forward to getting out there and seeing if we can get it done."

Still, the rink that's won the past two Canadian championships has done what many of its opponents haven't - kept the Trials in a clear perspective.

"Winning [the Trials] would be great, but we can't put everything into one event," she said. "If we don't go, I don't think we'll be heartbroken. We'll still be proud of what we accomplished and there are lots of other great things to work for.

"It's a huge event, don't get me wrong. But it's just one event."

For that reason, Jones said she hasn't allowed herself to develop any expectations of what it might be like to be at the Olympics. She'd rather wait and, if her team makes it through the Trials, let them unfold. She knows there's still a great deal of curling before she can think of going to Vancouver.

If she does make it to the Games, Jones knows she'll have her work cut out for her. The women's game at the international level has likely never seen more parity. When asked which teams she thinks will challenge for the gold medal, Jones mentions one, then two and unintentionally goes through seven of the 10 teams.

At last year's world championship, Jones failed to win a medal, finishing in fourth place just a year after winning the title. The Chinese, led by Bingyu Wang, shocked the curling world by taking the global crown, just 10 years after picking up the game.

Wang's team, like many that will be at the Games, are full-time curlers, paid by their governments to try to win medals. Jones tries to balance on-ice and off-ice careers, the latter as in-house counsel for Wellington West Capital. While she believes one day Canadian curlers will do the same, she doesn't begrudge teams such as the Chinese. Instead she sees her position as a bonus.

"I think it's great to be in a situation where I can have both," she said. "When curling is over, I can go to my career."

For now, her employer has been flexible as she embraced her profile, having her make appearances on the company's behalf, many of them speaking to school children not only about curling but about balance in life. "I love doing that," she said "The kids ask such great questions."

The only question remaining for Jones is whether she can prove the pundits right and win her way to Vancouver. A gold-medal performance there might finally force her to admit to her celebrity status.