She glided gracefully, right foot back grazing the ice, head bowed, blinking back tears, her sojourn scored by deafening applause. When she could finally look up she saw the crowd standing and staring back at her with adoration.
At the far end, among the scattered rocks, Colleen Jones's teammates also clapped hard, eyes welling. The rival New Brunswick rink, skipped by giant slayer Sandy Comeau, cheered, too. Three sheets over, a tense tiebreaker between Alberta and Ontario stopped cold, and all curlers joined in the standing ovation.
Colleen Jones, who skipped Team Canada to four consecutive women's national curling championships and is the sport's most iconic figure since Sandra Schmirler, waved almost reluctantly to the spectators at Mile One Stadium, conveying gratitude and goodbyes. Then she fell to her knees, head in her hands, and cried her heart out.
And just like that, with a thunderous, telegraphed shot from Comeau worth four in the ninth end, New Brunswick's surprising 9-4 tiebreaker victory over Team Canada forced the carrot-topped Queen of Curling from her throne.
She did not step down without a fight. But what a gut-wrenching grind it was.
For the first time since 2000, there will be a new women's curling champion. Jones, lead Nancy Delahunt, second Mary-Anne Arsenault and third Kim Kelly, were attempting to win an unprecedented fifth consecutive Scott Tournament of Hearts title and sixth of the past seven. They didn't even make the playoffs.
No other curler -- man or woman -- has won as many titles as Jones. She led her Mayflower Curling Club rink to two world titles in 2001 and 2004 in five attempts, but she has always waved off any mention she is the best ever, leaving that to Schmirler, who won three world titles and gold in Nagano.
But in the moments after missing the playoffs, the usually upbeat 45-year-old from Halifax was tear-stained and shattered.
"I just wanted to be done," she said of her exit walk along the sheet. "I was just so sad it was over. It was hard to acknowledge that the crowd was acknowledging what we did because I was just so crushed it was over.
"You're hanging on for all you can, trying to find a way to win. We just kept thinking we'd get a break, a miscue from their back end and we didn't get it. When you know what you're losing, it makes it that much harder."
Jones struggled throughout this year's tournament, gaining momentum only in the middle days of the round robin. She started the event 0-2 and did not look like her championship self until the middle of the week, when she rallied for four consecutive victories.
But she sputtered in the final days of the round robin and finished with a 6-5 record. She missed an attempted raise against Quebec on Thursday that would have sent the game into an extra end and then fell against Prince Edward Island, which was long out of the playoff hunt.
"We were dynamite in the middle of the week, right where we should be," Jones said. "Then we lost it and that was a drag. You don't want to lose it.
"We've had an incredible run and none of us want it to be over. You know these things come to an end but I don't think we'll appreciate what it was we were able to do coming out and winning four in a row. It's incredible. But God knows, we didn't want it to end."
For her part in curling history, Comeau, the 40-year-old skip from Moncton, seemed shocked.
"They are great ambassadors," she said of the Jones rink. "At the end, I couldn't say anything. I just looked her in the eye and said great job for curling. She's a great curler and we all respect her.
"Everybody wants the underdog to come through. If [Team]Canada won then great, but I think everybody wants someone new to step up and we have someone new, whoever that might be."
It likely won't be any of the teams that finally did in the Jones dynasty -- Quebec and PEI were both out of playoff contention while New Brunswick went on yesterday to lose 8-5 to Ontario in a playoff.
"I appreciate the fact we've won it five times today more than I have ever, because this week has been so hard," Kelly said. "People played us really well and we weren't as sharp. In a way it's almost a revelation. We were leading a charmed life."
Ken Bagwell, Jones's coach and sports psychologist, said that continuing the rink's reign forever was an impossibility.
"It's not complacency," he said. "How do you stay on top as long as we have and continue to recreate yourself so you get better and better? We knew at some point this stage would end. Now we just start up again. There's a desire by all teams to dethrone us. We went through 44 of them through four years. It's not unexpected that we wouldn't be able to continue at that level."
And that wave to the crowd earlier, as she exited the arena? It meant goodbye for now, but definitely not forever. The Olympic trials for Turin next year are in Halifax in December and the Jones rink has secured one of 10 berths. Yesterday, Jones called it her "carrot."
"One bad finish doesn't finish a team," she said. "We always have epiphanies after losses like this. If there's more for this team to do, we'll see it. We just have to give it some space and time."