Scheidegger crosses bridge to Canadian curling’s elite

One year ago, a noname 28-year-old curler and her sister came out of nowhere — the other side of the bridge leading into Lethbridge — and won her first Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event.

Casey Scheidegger, a former provincial junior champion from Red Deer, had never cashed anything remotely close to a $30,000 Canadian Open curling cheque before.

In seven appearances at the Alberta Scotties, she only once won more than two games and never made it to a final until last weekend in Medicine Hat.

Scheidegger had never made it into a Slam event before last year’s Canadian Open in North Battleford, SK., when she stole on the last end against Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland to win.

The win helped her gather enough Canadian Team Ranking System points to qualify for the Roar of the Rings Olympic Trials.

Scheidegger finished with a 3-5 record. It took about five minutes to get over it.

Sunday in Medicine Hat at the Alberta Scotties provincial final, playing on a team with sister Jesse and Grande Prairie curlers Cary-Anne McTaggart and Christie Moore, Scheidegger stole in the 11th end to defeat former Olympic medallist Shannon Kleibrink of Okotoks.

There were people who came to the morning draw here Wednesday to watch the newly crowned Alberta champion and were surprised to see Sherwood Park’s Heather Nedohin skipping her team. Scheidegger was, however, on the ice holding the broom at 8:30 a.m. Thursday against Jennifer Jones.

It seems this curling business is getting a little too hectic for Scheidegger to juggle with her responsibilities as a high school teacher in Lethbridge.

“Because I’d missed the first week back from the Christmas break playing in provincials, I felt it was important to be there for the first few days,” she said. “So I left the school at 4 p.m., drove the four hours to get here and got up real early in the morning.”

She lost on last rock 5-4 to Jones to drop to 0-2 and needed to win three straight games without a loss to avoid elimination.

Winning this event last year helped Scheidegger discover what had been missing.

“Finding success gave us confidence we could play in this company,” she said.

Scheidegger is thrilled to be headed to Penticton, B.C., for the Scotties, where she’s going to be a favourite along with Jones and maybe two other teams in the new 16-team, two pool field that now includes Nunavut.

“It was our goal to make it. For me, it was 16 years in the making. It’s awesome. I’m so excited. The high school students I teach physical education to in Lethbridge are excited, too.”