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Meet the Teams: Alberta, Québec, Northern Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador
MEET THE TEAMS COMPETING AT THE 2024 SCOTTIES TOURNAMENT OF HEARTS
The 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts is slated for Feb. 15-24 at the WinSport Event Centre in Calgary. Eighteen women’s teams will compete in the national curling championship.
Tickets for the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts can be purchased at https://www.curling.ca/2024scotties/tickets/
Meet the teams:
Team Alberta
In the words of Yogi Berra, it was déjà vu all over again for Selena Sturmay.
Just like the 2016 Alberta U21 women’s curling championship – where she faced and defeated Team Kayla Skrlik – Sturmay and her team of vice-skip Danielle Schmiemann, second Dezaray Hawes and lead Paige Papley outlasted Skrlik (the defending provincial champion) in the women’s field.
The 6-5 victory (which included a steal of two in the 10th end) propels Sturmay – who played vice-skip for Skrlik in 2020-21 – to her first Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
“Me and Kayla have been battling it out in junior and provincial finals for years, so we just know that it’s always going to be a great game against them,” Sturmay said after the win. “I’m sure there’s many more provincial finals against Kayla to come, as well.”
Sturmay has enjoyed other successes along the way, winning the 2019 New Holland Canadian U21 Women’s title and finishing as a runner-up at Worlds. She also has two Canadian U SPORTS titles under her belt. Her team competed in the 2022 PointsBet Invitational and upset Team Chelsea Carey in the first round. Sturmay has also curled mixed doubles with her brother, Karsten.
Like Sturmay, Schmiemann is a product of the strong University of Alberta curling program and a former New Holland U21 Canadian champion from 2015. Along with Kelsey Rocque the team claimed the World Juniors title that season. She was also twice a U SPORTS gold medallist with skip Kristen Streifel and Rocque and later won gold at the 2017 FISU World University Games with Rocque at the helm.
Along with Rocque, Schmiemann also participated in the 2021 Canadian Curling Trials and curls in mixed doubles with fiancé Jason Ginter.
Hawes is the only member of the team with previous Scotties experience, playing in the 2020 and 2021 nationals with former skip Corryn Brown. She placed second at the 2016 New Holland U21 Canadian championship with skip Sarah Daniels before joining Brown’s crew. She also previously competed in mixed doubles with her fiancé, three-time New Holland Canadian U21 champion Tyler Tardi.
Papley also comes out of the strong University of Alberta program and has donned Canada’s colours at the World Juniors (with Sturmay where they finished second) and FISU World University Games, but this will be her first trip to the Scotties.
The team is coached by Ted Appelman.
Team Québec
One of the more popular young curlers in the country, Laurie St-Georges will make her fourth straight Scotties Tournament of Hearts appearance after claiming the provincial championship.
It was the second-straight earned Quebec women’s title for the 26-year-old skip, who made a switch at the vice-skip position bringing in former U.S. champion Jamie Sinclair to replace Alanna Routledge.
The team is rounded out by second Emily Riley and lead Kelly Middaugh (daughter of three-time world champion Wayne Middaugh and Sherry Middaugh, who has four Scotties bronze medals and a silver from the 2013 Canadian Curling Trials).
Seven-time Quebec champion Marie-France Larouche – who has silver- and bronze-medal finishes from the Scotties and a gold from the World Mixed Curling Championship – is the alternate and the coach is Francois Roberge.
St-Georges was named the representative for the province in her first two Scotties Tournament of Hearts after the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled both the 2021 and 2022 Quebec playdowns. Team St-Georges’ first venture to the Scotties, inside the Calgary pandemic bubble in 2021, was an impressive one as the team finished 6-2 in round-robin play, before finishing 6-6 following the championship round. In Thunder Bay, Ont., the following year, Team St-Georges went 3-5.
St-Georges herself was also part of the Quebec squad that captured the 2022 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship before finishing third at 2023 World Mixed Curling Championship. She had also competed in three New Holland Canadian Junior Championships, finishing as runner-up to Team Kaitlyn Jones of Nova Scotia in 2018. In her first trip to the Scotties, the young skip also won the Marj Mitchell Sportsmanship Award, voted on by players.
Riley has been a member of St-Georges’ team for the last eight seasons, while Middaugh joined the team last year. Sinclair was born in Alaska, but grew up in Ontario and won gold at the 2007 Canada Winter Games before committing to represent the U.S. in 2014.
Sinclair claimed three U.S. national championships from 2017-19 and added runner-up finishes in 2020 and 2021. She finished second and third, respectively, at the 2017 and 2021 U.S. Olympic curling trials.
Middaugh is the eldest child of Wayne and Sherry and has represented Ontario’s Wilfrid Laurier University team.
Team Northern Ontario
Krista McCarville, of Thunder Bay, brings a new wrinkle with her to her 11th appearance at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
McCarville, who has twice finished as a runner-up in the national women’s championship (including 2022 at her home-town event), has added Andrea Kelly at vice-skip. The remainder of the five-person team includes front-enders Kendra Lilly, Sarah Potts and Ashley Sippala, who can all be interchanged.
McCarville is coached by Rick Lang who is Potts’s father and has twice finished as a bronze medallist at the women’s Canadian Curling Trials.
Kelly, who previously played out of New Brunswick, will be making her 12th appearance at the Scotties, including her third straight. She is a bronze-medal winner from the 2005 World Junior Championship, 2022 Scotties and 2003 Canada Winter Games.
Lilly was an alternate for McCarville back at the 2009 Scotties and then joined the team full time the following season. She has six previous Scotties appearances to her name with the two silver and the bronze Scotties finishes, as well as a bronze from the recent Canadian Curling Trials.
Sippala will compete in her eighth Scotties, holding the same three medals as Lilly and Potts, was the alternate for McCarville at the 2010 national championship before joining the team full-time the next season.
This will be Potts’ seventh Scotties and she also holds the same three Scotties medals as Lilly and Sippala and the bronze from the Canadian Curling Trials.
Team Newfoundland and Labrador
Stacie Curtis returns to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts for her second consecutive year and seventh overall trip to the national championship.
The skip brings her same team back from the 2023 Scotties where they finished 2-6 in Pool B play, but is also joined by Jessica Wiseman. The rink consists of vice-skip Erica Curtis, with Julie Hynes, Camille Burt and Wiseman playing in a five-person rotation.
Curtis’s best finish at the Scotties came in 2017 when she finished 5-6. It was in the middle of three straight appearances from 2016-18, but she would not return until 2023.
Team Curtis used five multiple-enders in a 13-5 win in eight ends over Brooke Godsland, including a steal of four in the eighth which ended it.
Curtis is a former four-time provincial junior champion, who claimed a Canadian Junior title in 2007 and finished as a World Junior runner-up that year. She was the first Newfoundland and Labrador female skip to win a Canadian Junior crown.
Erica Curtis has competed in four previous Scotties in 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2023, skipping her own team in 2020. Hynes was her second that year and has appeared in seven total Scotties of her own. She was a member of skip Stacie Curtis’s successful 2007 junior team.
Hynes has the most Scotties experience of the team as she will be making her eighth trip to the national women’s championship. She is the sister of skip Stace Curtis and was also a member of that successful 2007 junior team.
Burt joined Team Curtis in 2023 and appeared in two New Holland Canadian U21 championships.
Team Curtis is coached by Eugene Trickett.
Tickets for the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts can be purchased at https://www.curling.ca/2024scotties/tickets/