By Larry Wood

Jill Officer has spent recent years driving a ’97 Chevy Cavalier clunker up and down the highway from Brandon to Winnipeg and back. And forth and back and forth and so on.
On Saturday, the opportunity to dump the clunker stared her in the mug and she responded, winning the Ford Hot Shots at the Brandt Centre and the top prize of a two-year lease — valued at roughly $15,240 — on a brand new 2008 Ford Fusion SEL V6.
“It feels really good,” gushed the Manitoba second player from Winnipeg as she fondled the new car keys.
“It’s exciting. It gets your blood flowing and your intensity going. It’s just to be out there as a team. We just got it going, so bring on the games.”
Officer was up against Prince Edward Island vice-skip Robyn MacPhee in the final of the shotmaking event and outpointed the Islander 22-15. Officer also bested MacPhee in the semis by a 26-20 count and both advanced when neither Kelly Scott of Kelowna nor Nancy Belanger of Quebec could amass 20 points. Scott scored 18 and Belanger 14.
It was mentioned that Hot Shots winners often have gone on to win the Scotties but, in fact, it only happened once in women’s play — in 2000 when Kelley Law won the title.
Colleen Jones won six Scotties but the year she won the Hot Shots (2006) her team finished up the track at the Scotties and subsequently broke up.
When Officer and her Jennifer Jones-skipped team won the Scotties in 2005, they defeated Jenn Hanna of Ottawa in the final. Hanna won the Hot Shots at the start of the week.
Law also won her second straight Hot Shots in 2001 but lost the Scotties final to Colleen Jones.
Officer shrugged off any deep meaning attached to the win, one way or another.
“My sweepers were great out there, it was a team effort,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without them.”
But she doesn’t plan to share the use of the gas buggy.
 “I’ll have to buy them dinner or drinks or a present or something,” she said. “I’ll buy them a gift and if they’re not happy I’ll buy them more.”
Officer said she was planning to dump the old Chevy “in a year, maybe a year-and-a-half.  So I might as well do that now.”
The car had 40,000 klicks on the odometer when she bought it in 2001.
“Now it’s got 165,000 at least,” she said.  "So, for sure, I’ll take this deal.”
Officer shared a leading 21-point performance in the quarter-finals with Scott and Belanger. MacPhee scored 19.
Dropping out at that point were P.E.I. skip Suzanne Gaudet (14), Friday's leader Kim Moore of Ontario (11), Amanda Brennan of Kamloops (10) and Kirsten Wall of Ontario (7).
The event requires curlers to execute six shots: Hit-and-stay, draw-the-button, draw-the-port, the raise, the hit-and-roll and the double-takeout. Each shot is awarded points on a scale from 0-5, rating the success of each for a maximum total of 30 points..
The new vehicle’s features include a 3.0 L V6 engine and six-speed automatic transmission.
MacPhee was presented with a cheque for $2,000, while Scott pocketed $1,000.
The only previous Ford Hot Shots winner at the Hearts from Manitoba was Gerri Cooke of Brandon.
Other winners are Saskatchewan's Kay Montgomery, British Columbia's Sherry Fraser, Kristy Lewis and double winner Law, New Brunswick's Allison Farrell (Franey), Alberta's Marcy Balderston, Prince Edward Island’s Suzanne Gaudet, Ontario’s Andrea Lawes and Hanna, and Nova Scotia’s Colleen Jones.
Defending champion Kelli Turpin of Inuvik, a member of last year’s Territories team, took this year off to give birth to her first child.
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