It’s been a little over a year since Jennifer Jones and her foursome from Winnipeg, MB stood on a podium in Sochi as Olympic curling champions.

Despite life changing drastically off the ice for Jones, the rink hasn’t missed a beat on the ice, capturing her fifth Scotties Tournament of Hearts title last month in Moose Jaw and will represent Canada at the world women’s curling championship in Sapporo, Japan starting this weekend.

“I used to think my life was busy before and now I have a new sense of busy. It’s just been amazing. We’ve had so many unbelievable opportunities, life-changing moments that we’ll never forget and we feel really fortunate to have experienced it together,” Jones told TSN.ca in a recent interview. “Honestly if feels like the Olympic journey hasn’t ended for us.”

Jones’ squad decided to embark on a second four-year trek for another shot at Olympic glory in 2018 after a short deliberation period at the end of last season.

“I did contemplate stepping away from the game just because I have a young family and it’s a pretty big commitment. I have a career, but honestly the biggest draw for me is that the girls I play with are just so amazing. We have so much fun,” said the 40-year-old who has a child with her partner and fellow curler Brent Laing. “It was kind of a fleeting moment that we thought about stepping away and it was a pretty easy decision to continue.”

Jones, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn McEwen have their sights on a Worlds title at the moment though as they’ll try to be the first team from Canada to win the event since Jones did it in 2008 in Vernon, BC. Cathy Overton-Clapham was throwing vice stones back in those days before she was replaced by Lawes in 2010.

Six of the 12 teams that will battle in Japan have their full or part of their team from the Sochi Olympics taking part. Jones sported a perfect record at the Games last year on her path to the top of the podium, but says the Worlds field is not to be taken lightly.

“I wouldn’t say the Scotties has a better field. I would say the fields are fairly equal,” explained Jones. “It’s really hard to win the Scotties and it’s really hard to win the Worlds. The depth of talent at the World Championships is the same or better than at the Scotties.”

Some of the notable rinks include Sweden’s silver medal squad led by Margaretha Sigfridsson, Scotland’s Eve Muirhead who won bronze at the Games, Russia’s Anna Sidorova, Lene Nielsen of Denmark and Ayumi Ogasawara, the host country representative. The 2014 champions from Switzerland, who were led by Binia Feltscher, failed to qualify this time around.

Jones says women’s curling on the world stage is growing with the young, talented rinks starting to find success.

“It’s grown a lot in the past 10 years,” said the Winnipegger. “It’s great for women’s curling, great to be a part of that. It just makes you try to be that much better and really try to fine tune your skills and that’s really what sport is all about.  It’s really because of the Olympics that we’re seeing that growth. “

You can catch all of Canada’s action live throughout the week on TSN and you can follow the latest news on TSN.ca. Draw 1 goes Saturday morning at 6am et/3am pt on TSN1, TSN3, TSN4 and TSN5 with Team Canada facing Team Finland.