The Road to Red Deer: West Update

The Road to Red Deer continues with an update from the West. British Columbia: Reigning British Columbia Scotties champ Kelly Scott will headline the field at the 2012 Scotties B.C. Women’s Curling Championship, which will be presented by Best Western at the North Shore Winter Club from January 23-29. Last year at the Charlottetown Scotties, the 2007 World Women’s champion and her team of Jeanna Schraeder, Sasha Carter and Jacquie Armstrong finished with a round-robin record of 7-4 before being ousted from playoff contention in a tiebreaker loss to Nova Scotia’s Heather Smith-Dacey. This season, Schraeder is on maternity leave from the Kelowna Curling Club team and has been replaced by former B.C. junior champ Dailene Sivertson at vice. Kelley Law, who won the 2000 Ford World Women’s Curling Championship in Glasgow, will lead her Royal City Curling Club team of Shannon Aleksic, Kirsten Fox and Dawn Suliak into provincial finals play in North Vancouver. She’ll be hoping to make her eighth trip to the national Scotties shootout in Red Deer in February. Also out of New Westminster’s Royal City Curling Club comes Marla Mallett who captured the provincial title in 2009. Her feisty foursome should prove to be in the mix, as will 2008 provincial champ Allison MacInnes, who will be representing the Kamloops Curling Club. The rest of the field includes teams skipped by Richmond’s Kelly Thompson, Victoria’s Roselyn Craig, Prince George’s Jen Russell, Richmond’s Marilou Richter, Royal City’s Nicole Backe and Brenda Garvey of Kamloops. The finalists were determined through a series of four qualifiers which were held across the province throughout November and December. When next they meet in North Vancouver, the 10 teams will play a round-robin schedule in advance of a four-team Page playoff in order to determine the 2012 provincial champions. Yukon/Northwest Territories: The joint Yukon/Northwest Territories Women’s Curling Championships will be held at the Yellowknife Curling Club from January 26-29. Two teams from each jurisdiction will play down to determine who will wear territorial colours at the 2012 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Red Deer. The two teams to advance from the Yukon Territories will be determined at the Whitehorse Curling Club in competition play running from January 5-8. The Scotties NWT Territorial Championship will decide the two teams to advance out of that jurisdiction at the Inuvik Curling Club from January 12-15. Kerry Galusha and her Yellowknife Curling Club team of Dawn Moses, Wendy Miller and Shona Barbour finished the 2011 Scotties Tournament of Hearts competition in Charlottetown with a record of 3-8. The veteran Scotties skip would have to be considered the favourite heading into the 2012 play down process.