Crocker, Sweeting, Sonnenberg clinch berths in pressure-packed Olympic pre-trials event
That gust of wind that blew through Alberta on Wednesday morning was actually a collective sigh of relief fromLaura Crocker, Renee Sonnenberg and Val Sweeting after they learned their rinks had clinched berths in curling’s Capital One Road to the Roar Olympic pre-trials at Kitchener, Ont.
“It’s kind of nice to see your name on the formalized list. It makes it a little more real,” said Crocker, a two-time Canadian Interuniversity Sport champion who didn’t know what to expect after she moved from Toronto to Edmonton with two of her Wilfrid Laurier teammates last summer.
“It’s pretty unreal for us. We qualified in every (Grand) Slam that we played in as a full team. We’re very happy with how we’ve done this year.”
Crocker, whose team includes Sarah Wilkes, Rebecca Pattison of Calgary and Jen Gates, was 14th on the World Curling Tour’s money list at $22,700, just behind 2012 Canadian women’s champion Heather Nedohin.
She also played in the Alberta women’s championship and had a good showing at the recent Players’ Championship in Toronto after an 0-2 start, beating Olympic trials teams Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg, Sherry Middaugh of Victoria Harbour, Ont., and Chelsea Carey of Winnipeg in three consecutive games to reach the quarter-finals.
Crocker’s 2012 CIS championship rink is already guaranteed a trip to Trentino, Italy, from Dec. 11-21 to represent Canada in the Winter Universiade.
But she’d love to make her schedule even more hectic by also advancing from the pretrials Nov. 5-10 at Kitchener to the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings at Winnipeg Dec. 1-8.
“We’re hoping we’re going straight from the trials to the Games in Italy,” she said. “It would be a good problem to have.”
Nedohin, Stefanie Lawton of Saskatoon and reigning Canadian champion Rachel Homan of Ottawa have already joined Jones, Middaugh and Carey at the trials.
Two more teams will come out of the pre-trials, where half of the 12 rinks come from Alberta, including Calgary’s Shannon Kleibrink, Cheryl Bernard and Crystal Webster.
This will be Sonnenberg’s first appearance in the Olympic pre-trials.
She’s been close to qualifying in the past, getting edged out by Saskatchewan’s Amber Holland in 2009 after losing a qualifying game at a World Curling Tour bonspiel.
“With those points, she squeaked in and we just missed,” said Sonnenberg, a Grande Prairie resident who has played with Edmonton’s Lawnie MacDonald and Rona Pasika the last three years.
Second Cary-Anne Sallows, who now lives in Milk River in southern Alberta, joined the team last season.
“It’s definitely trickier for a remote team than one which lives near an international airport,” said Sonnenberg, pointing out that she still has another five or six hours of travelling left when her teammates get back to Edmonton.
Sonnenberg’s team had “a really good year,” reaching the provincial final, ranking 11th on the money list at $25,700, and qualifying for the playoffs at the Player’s Championship. They played in seven bonspiels this season, instead of her usual four or five, in an attempt to qualify for the trials.
One thing Sonnenberg really likes about her teammates is they still wanted to play after the Players’ Championship was over while many other teams couldn’t wait for the season to be over.
“We’re always excited to see each other once we go away to an event or get together for a training session, so that’s kind of nice,” she said.
Sonnenberg plans on getting an early start on next season with a training session in late July at the Saville Community Sports Centre, while Sweeting’s rink will play in a summer league at the Saville.
“We’re definitely looking at our fitness level, because the Olympics bring a certain amount of pressure with it. With that can come some mental fatigue, so we’re making sure our physical fitness isn’t contributing to that fatigue at all,” Sonnenberg said.
Sweeting said her team of Dana Ferguson, Joanne Taylor and Rachelle Pidherny will also be working on their fitness this summer.