THUNDER BAY – At the Scotties, experience matters.
Team Northern Ontario has plenty of it.
Skip Krista McCarville and her newly minted third, Andrea Kelly, are each making their 11th trip to the national women’s curling championship being held in Calgary, Alta.
It’s the eighth time for Ashley Sippala, and Kendra Lilly and Sarah Potts have gone to the event seven times apiece.
McCarville, Sippala, Potts and Lily are coming off back-to-back podium finishes at the Scotties, earning a silver medal in Thunder Bay in 2022 and bronze last year in Kamloops, B.C.
This may be their best team yet, McCarville said on Monday, getting in some last-minute practice time at Fort William Curling Club, the rink she calls home.
“I think our team is a lot stronger and I think we feel really positive. We worked really hard this year, but also the years in the past. We’re going there as a team that’s a little bit more experienced now, so hopefully we can perform really well, make it to the playoffs and then we’ll see from there,” McCarville said.
It’s not a tournament that any team can afford to get complacent at, especially with the addition of one more wild-card team, a decision made when Nunavut opted not to ice a team this year. The move means one more of Canada’s top teams is in the mix.
It makes a big difference, said McCarville, whose first Scotties appearance was 18 years ago, in 2006.
“It’s definitely changed. Most provinces are there, but there are a lot of added teams and the added teams are those top teams in Canada. If we want to win, we’re going to have to play our best and it’ll be that much more exciting when we do win,” she said.
Kelly, who skipped New Brunswick to bronze in 2022 at Fort William Gardens, is the big difference for the team this year, opting to join forces with Team McCarville despite calling Fredericton, N.B. home. Kelly has made a couple of trips to Thunder Bay, along with Sudbury’s Lilly, and was a key factor in last month’s provincial championship win in Little Current, Ont., where they put their five-man rotation to its latest test.
It was a gamble, but so far, so good.
“We’ve played together for eight years and we’ve been so close every time. We said we needed to do something different. Last year we made some changes with our practicing, we made some changes in our strategy and we still got so close, but not close enough,” McCarville said.
“That’s when started talking about a five-man team, maybe exploring the rotation and said why not give it a shot. Andrea jumped on board. She’s a great player. This is her 11th Scotties as well, so she has the experience and she’s a really good asset to the team.”
Kelly said the provincials cemented her role, and as the week went on, she felt more able to be herself on the ice, adding the Scotties will be different in many ways this year, but the same in many others.
“I’ll get to represent a new province. It’s really special to have won it with this team. We’ve become really good friends over the course of the season,” Kelly said after capturing the Northern Ontario title.
Team McCarville opens play on Friday night at 8 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) against British Columbia’s Corryn Brown. Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson is the four-time defending champion.
