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By rdnewsNOW Staff

Kamloops, B.C.: Round-robin pools

Red Deer’s Jocelyn Peterman on Wild Card team for Scotties Tournament of Hearts

Jan 31, 2023 | 2:04 PM

Red Deer’s Jocelyn Peterman will compete in the 2023 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Kamloops, B.C. this February as part of the Wild Card One team.

From February 17-26 at the Sandman Centre, the event will feature 18 teams – Team Canada, 14 provincial/territorial champions and three Wild Card teams — split into two pools of nine, ordered based on their final standing on the Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) as of Jan. 30, 2023.

READ: Lawes, Scheidegger, Walter in wild-card position for Scotties Tournament of Hearts

After seven provincial championships completed this past weekend, the full field, and the two round-robin pools, have now been set.

Teams skipped by Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes, Alberta’s Casey Scheidegger and Manitoba’s Meghan Walter fill the three wild-card positions.

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In Pool A, Lawes will skip for Wild Card One, with Laura Walker as Third, Jocelyn Peterman as Second, Kristin MacCuish as Lead, and Lisa Weagle as Coach.

Team Lawes will have a new player in the lineup as Walker will replace Selena Njegovan, now an alternate, who has been granted a pregnancy leave and is not expected to travel to Kamloops, according to Curling Canada. Teams in the top five of the CTRS standings were eligible to apply for a pregnancy exemption that allowed them to add a free agent player for the national Scotties who didn’t participate in their provincial/territorial playdowns. The exemption applied only to top five teams because their ability to replace a player with someone with an equal level of ability and commitment is limited.

Currently, Lawes is ranked fourth behind defending Scotties champion Kerri Einarson of Manitoba, Ontario’s Rachel Homan and Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones, who beat Walter in the provincial final over the weekend.

For the competition, teams will play a complete eight-game round robin within their pools. From there, the top three teams in each pool will advance to the playoffs. The second- and third-ranked teams in each pool cross over to play in Page playoff qualifier games on Friday, Feb. 24 at 1 p.m. PT. The winners advance to play the winners of Pool A and Pool B on Friday, Feb. 24 at 6 p.m. PT. The winners of those games go to the Page 1v2 game, while the losers will compete in the Page 3v4 game.

The standard Page playoffs commence with the winner of the Page 1v2 game on Saturday, Feb. 25 at 6 p.m. PT, advancing directly to the final, and the loser will play the winner of the Page 3v4 game (scheduled for 1 p.m. PT on Saturday) in the semi-final.

The semifinal, on Sunday, Feb. 26 at noon, winner takes on the winner of the Page 1v2 game in the final at 6 p.m. PT on Sunday. The winner will represent Canada at the 2023 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship March 18-26 in Sandviken, Sweden.

For the entire 2023 Scotties Tournament of Hearts schedule, click here.

(with files from The Canadian Press)