Bottcher and Walker to skip Alberta national teams, Koe gets wild-card

The long wait to learn who will represent Alberta at the national curling championships is over. The decision provided some clarity on the wild-card front too.

Reigning Alberta champions Laura Walker and Brendan Bottcher will wear provincial colours once again, Curling Alberta announced Monday, 10 days after cancelling its playdowns due to the COVID19 pandemic.

Walker, ranked seventh in Canada, was expected to get the nod for the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. However, the selection of the fourth-ranked Bottcher for the Tim Hortons Brier was tougher to predict.

Sixth-ranked Kevin Koe and 15th-ranked Jeremy Harty also had a case. Koe didn’t play in the last Alberta playdowns since he had a Brier entry as Team Canada, while Harty is the provincial standings leader.

“This was an extremely difficult decision for Curling Alberta’s board of directors,” Curling Alberta president Steven Young said in a release. “As a province, we were faced with a unique set of circumstances in unprecedented times.

“No one could predict that we would be forced to make a decision like this, which we tried to avoid by pushing hard to host our championships.”