McCarville earns berth into Canadian Olympic trials

tHE CANADIAN prEss

Krista McCarville earned one of two berths into the Canadian curling trials Saturday after defeating Winnipeg’s Briane Meilleur 7-5 in the first of two women’s qualifying games at the 2017 Road to the Roar pretrials.

Team McCarville will compete at the 2017 Roar of the Rings next month in Ottawa — Canada’s Olympic curling qualifying tournament.

“Oh, we’re so excited,” said McCarville.

“To come out here and play so well in this great field, it feels really good to get the first spot and to be going to those trials.”

McCarville, from Thunder Bay, Ont., is backed up by third Kendra Lilly, second Ashley Sippala, lead Sarah Potts and coach Lorraine Lang.

In recent years, McCarville hasn’t played the Grand Slam circuit to any great extent, but has delivered under the spotlight at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts the past two seasons, winning silver in 2016 and losing the bronze-medal game last February.

“Coming into this, I said to the girls that it’s like a Scotties,” said McCarville.

“A beautiful arena with the great atmosphere, the great ice, the rocks, so it’s like a national competition that you want to win.”

On the men’s side, John Morris of Vernon, B.C., booked his spot in the trials by beating Brendan Bottcher of Edmonton 4-3 on Sunday morning.

The other men’s and women’s berths were determined later Sunday.

The Road to the Roar is the final qualifying event for teams to reach the Roar of the Rings, Dec. 2 to 10 in Ottawa, where Canada’s four-player curling teams for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, will be decided.