KINGSTON, ONT. - Colleen Jones is taking time to stop and smell the roses, flowers that once came with plenty of thorns.

Twenty-one times, over five decades ... Gordie Howe-like ... she's lined up in the hack at a Scotties Tournament of Hearts ... six national championships, two world titles.

While this Scotties hasn't gone quite as planned for Jones, the third for Mary-Anne Arsenault's Nova Scotia rink, is no longer the volcanic young skip whose behaviour constantly got her in hot water so many years ago.