Local curler Jocelyn Peterman competes this weekend at Scotties Tournament of Hearts

Team Lawes has a new player in the lineup as Walker will replace Selena Njegovan, now an alternate, who has been granted a pregnancy leave.

Team Manitoba, skipped by Jennifer Jones alongside her new-look team from Winnipeg and Altona, won’t play their first game until Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. PT against 2022 Scotties silver-medallist Team Krista McCarville of Northern Ontario. Kerri Einarson’s three-time defending champion Team Canada crew from Gimli, Manitoba, will be in the opening draw Friday at 6 p.m. PT against Quebec’s Team Laurie St-Georges.

With a victory in the Feb. 26 gold-medal game, Jones — whose new team is rounded out by vice-skip Mackenzie Zacharias, second Karlee Burgess, co-leads Lauren Lenentine and Emily Zacharias and coach Glenn Howard — would have a seventh Scotties title, which would break the record she currently co-holds with long-time teammate Jill Officer and Colleen Jones.

Meanwhile, Einarson, with vice-skip Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard, lead Briane Harris, alternate Krysten Karwacki and coach Reid Carruthers, can match a record of their own with a 2023 Scotties triumph. It would be their fourth straight Canadian women’s curling championship, matching the record currently held by Colleen Jones, Kim Kelly, Mary-Anne Arsenault and Nancy Delahunt.

Besides Teams Einarson, Jones, and Lawes, the third Wild Card entry is also from Manitoba. An all-Scotties-rookie entry from East St. Paul, skip Meghan Walter and second Sara Oliver are hardly strangers to high-stakes curling as both were members of the Colin Kurz-skipped Manitoba team that won the 2019 Canadian and World mixed championship. Walter, who will celebrate her 21st birthday during the 2023 Scotties, was just 17 when she won the world mixed.

Ontario’s Team Rachel Homan, with new shot-caller Tracy Fleury coming aboard, will look to reach the top step of the medal podium since they prevailed in 2017.

St-Georges will be taking aim at her second Canadian championship of the season. She and second Emily Riley teamed with Félix Asselin (St-Georges’s partner) and Émile Asselin to win the 2022 Canadian mixed championship in November in Prince Albert, Sask., and will represent Canada at the 2023 World Mixed Championship in October (location to be determined).

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)

by rdnewsNOW Staff

Local curler Jocelyn Peterman competes this weekend at Scotties Tournament of Hearts

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