Home Stretch at The Scotties

The original 18-team field at the 2022 Canadian women’s curling championship is down to six.

The narrowed playoff field contains a mix of young teams and veterans. Some of those teams rebounded from a slow start in the round robin to finish strong, while others backed into the playoffs after racking up most of their wins early in the week.

Here’s a roundup of who’s left and where they stand, as the Scotties Tournament of Hearts enters its playoff weekend.

The Polar Power

After giving up a five-point lead in their final round robin game, the Manitoba team skipped by Mackenzie Zacharias was forced to battle Kerry Galusha’s Northwest Territories in a Friday morning tiebreaker.

Galusha had won her final round robin match over Alberta’s Laura Walker to force the game.

“We’re pretty excited that we’re still alive,” said Galusha following the Alberta tussle. She is no doubt even happier with the 8-6 victory her squad scored over Zacharias this morning..

The Territories scored two three-enders in the second and eight ends. The latter came on a brilliant shot by NWT fourth thrower Jo-Ann Rizzo.

Manitoba responded with a three-count of their own in the ninth to close the gap to 8-6, but couldn’t conjure any steal magic in the final end.

No team from the Northwest Territories has ever won the women’s national championship. The last team to make the playoffs was Shelly Bildfell’s quartet in 1983.

“I’m not going to be curling that much longer,” said Galusha on Thursday. “The girls might get one more year out of me, but that’s about it. So we’re really going to give it our all in the tiebreaker tomorrow and try to make some history.”

They did just that.

The Home Team

A loss in their final round robin game handed Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville a third-place finish in Pool A, but the hometown squad out of the Fort William Curling Club is looking forward to a boost of energy as the playoffs get underway.

Curling Canada has announced that some of the 348 registered event volunteers, as well as 37 members of the Future Stars program—a group of junior curlers from the Thunder Bay area—will be allowed into the Fort William Gardens arena for playoff games, starting Friday afternoon.

“When we envisioned this event, that's how we pictured it,” said lead Sarah Potts. “We know people are cheering at home. We’ve had a lot of support like Krista’s school and everything. So we know people have been cheering, but to actually hear them in the stands will be nice.”

McCarville’s students, a grade six class in Thunder Bay, have been watching her compete on television during the event. Now she can look forward to having her two young children in the building during the playoffs, as members of the Future Stars program.

McCarville says her team didn’t yet know if they would make the playoffs when the decision was announced earlier in the week. “But now that we know that we’re in the playoffs, and there’s going to be people in the stands, it’s super exciting,” she said.

The Surprise Starters

Skip Andrea Crawford has been to 10 national championships, but she finished this year’s round robin with her best ever record at 6-2.

Following her team’s sixth win on Wednesday over Team Newfoundland and Labrador, Crawford said her New Brunswick foursome had stepped up its training in recent years, and this boosted its confidence coming into the event.

“This team has worked really hard,” said Crawford. “The last few years we just started to put more time on the ice, more time in off-ice. We work very hard physically.”

“We just came into this event believing that we had the ability to play well, and I think that has made a big difference for us. Mostly it was just really believing in ourselves this year.”

The team won its first five games in a row, but has dropped two of their last three.

The Super Sub

Skip Tracey Fleury made a seamless return from COVID-19 isolation on Thursday for her Wild Card team’s final game of the round robin, throwing 85% in an 8-6 victory over McCarville.

A day earlier, it was still unclear when Fleury would be ready to return, or if the team would make a lineup change at a time when it had gone undefeated in six straight games with third Selena Njegovan moving up to the tee.

“I was a little worried heading in,” said Fleury. “I hadn’t been on the ice in two weeks so it was in the back of my head, but I’m in that situation quite a bit throughout the season, and I think once I did get back out there with the girls it just really felt natural.”

While in isolation, Fleury phoned into team debriefs, but didn’t get too involved in strategy.

“I didn’t want to get in the way too much because they were obviously on a roll and had found their groove.”

Fleury lost the final of the Canadian Olympic Trials in December, then claimed one of three STOH Wild Card berths after making an early exit from their provincial playdowns in Manitoba.

The Defending Champs

The only team with a perfect 8-0 record in the round robin, skip Kerri Einarson and her Team Canada squad out of Gimli, Manitoba are seeking to become only the third team in Tournament of Hearts history to win three or more titles in a row.

The only other teams to accomplish that feat were skipped by Jones’ … legends Jennifer (2008-2010) and Colleen (2001-2004).

Einarson believes her comeback win from a five-point deficit against Manitoba on Thursday can only help them move into the next phase of competition.

“We just clawed back and we just kept putting pressure on them, and I think the definitely helps going into playoffs,” she said.

The New Skip on the Block

Nova Scotia’s Christina Black has been to the Scotties twice before, but this year’s event marks her first time as a skip. She proved she’s ready for the role with a victory over her former skip Mary-Anne Arsenault this week, en route to a 5-3 round robin record.

Nova Scotia won a tight Wednesday night game over Alberta, which secured their fourth win and kept their team in the playoff hunt.

“It was just a really tight battle, a lot of rocks in play. It was very intense,” said Black, laughing.

“It would have been a great game to watch because it was just back and forth, tons of great shots.”

Friday’s first round of playoff matches sees Nova Scotia take on Northern Ontario, with the winner moving on to battle Fleury, while New Brunswick meets Northwest Territories, with the winner facing Team Canada.

Team Nova Scotia second Karlee Jones, who is making her first Scotties appearance, was recognized with the Marj Mitchell Sportmanship Award.