Instant contender
Wild-card winner will join Scotties favourites
SYDNEY, N.S. — For one team, it’s an opportunity to become an instant contender in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and for the other, it’s a long trip for nothing.
As Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man., and Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta., made their way across the country to Cape Breton Island with their teams this week, they did so not knowing if they’d be staying for two nights or 11.
“Just pack a lot and be ready for anything,” Scheidegger said.
The two teams will meet in the wild-card game Friday night at Centre 200 and the winner will be the third seed for the Canadian women’s curling championship, which tells you something about the quality of the combatants.
One of these two teams — ranked second (Einarson) and sixth (Scheidegger) in the Canadian standings — will be going home before the full event even gets under way on Saturday.
“We’re looking at it just like a provincial final,” Scheidegger said. “It’s the same idea. Winner gets to go to the Scotties, so we’re going in with that mindset.”
Of course, in most provincial finals, a team has just played a half dozen or more games to get there. In this case, the teams are coming in a bit cold and in Scheidegger’s case, possibly a bit weary. Her team had to travel across three time zones late Wednesday after its earlier flight out of Lethbridge was cancelled, spend the night in Halifax and drive four hours to Sydney on Thursday morning through a province that was hit by a raging snowstorm the day before.
“I would love it if it were a little closer to home,” Scheidegger said with a little laugh. “But we’re happy because any second chance is great and any chance to get to the Scotties is what we want. We’re very happy to be in the game.”
Einarson has been down this road before and she saw just how lucrative the wildcard spot can be. The wild card was added to the Scotties and Brier last year in order to give strong teams that lose out in tough provinces a second chance. Last year in Penticton, Einarson, with different teammates, beat Chelsea Carey in the wild-card game and went on to make it to the Scotties final before losing to Jennifer Jones.
“We had such a great experience with it last year and played so well the entire event,” Einarson said.
“That’s what we’re hoping for this year.”
Einarson left her team after last season and formed a new squad with third Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Meilleur. It’s a very good team that will be a strong contender if it gets through the wild-card game. It’s also one eagerly seeking redemption after losing the Manitoba final to Tracy Fleury, who replaced Einarson as skip on her old team (third Selena Njegovan, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish).
“It was unfortunate that we didn’t win our province,” Einarson said. “We had such a great provincial. It just sucks that we came out a little bit flat in the final. It happens and we’re gonna learn from that and we’re gonna grow as a team from it. It was our great season that got ourselves into this position, to give ourselves a second shot at it, and that’s big.”
Scheidegger’s team, which includes third Cary-Anne McTaggart, second Jesse Haughian (Scheidegger’s sister) and lead Kristie Moore, has had a strong season as well and played in both the Olympic trials and Scotties last year.
Still, the Einarson team has the edge in experience. Einarson is in her third Scotties, Sweeting skipped Team Alberta three times and made the playoffs twice, Birchard played third for Jones last year and won a championship while replacing Olympian Kaitlyn Lawes and Meilleur was a skip herself until this season.
“They’ve all played in big games and we’ve played in a lot of big games as a team this season,” Einarson said.
Scheidegger acknowledged that experience is everything at this level.
“We know (Einarson) knows what to expect but, for us, it’s really just about playing well and making a lot of shots,” she said. “Even at our provincials, we played really well. We didn’t get the results we wanted and so it’s really just fine-tuning and making a couple more shots here or there. We’re really not far off from winning a lot of games that we’ve lost. We’re trying to keep a positive mindset and make those few more shots that we need every game.”