Canada’s Kerri Einarson wins Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 11 ends

A Manitoba curler is heading to the Women’s World Championship after coming out on top at this weekend’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

MISSISSAUGA — All night Canada’s Kerri Einarson and Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes were missing their shots. But with the Scotties Tournament of Hearts hanging in the balance, Einarson drilled a short-angle raise on her own rock in the 10th to tie the game 3-3 and force an extra end.

“I’ve battled so hard all week and I’m so proud of my teammates for sticking in there with me,” said Einarson moments after Sunday night’s win. “I just told them to hang in there. In 10 I had to come in there with a clutch shot.

“I just told them ‘stay patient, stay with me,’ and I just thought, ‘do this for your teammates, Kerri, they need you here.”’

Lawes didn’t fully connect on a tricky takeout attempt in the 11th end, allowing Einarson to pick up her third steal of the game, as Canada beat the Manitoba rink 4-3 in the final at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre. It was Einarson’s fifth national women’s curling title and her first since 2023.

“We all tried our best, and we can’t really ask for shots back,” said Lawes. “It’s just, what can we do different if we were to continue going forward?

“So super proud of my teammates. They played incredible, and I wish I could have made that last shot for them.”

Einarson believed that Lawes’s line on the takeout was so narrow that it was virtually impossible to make.

“She hit it as perfect as she could. I don’t think it (the shot) was there, unfortunately,” said Einarson. “She threw it great and they’re a great team.”

Either Einarson or Rachel Homan have been finalists at the Tournament of Hearts for the past 10 years.

Homan, the 2024 and 2025 champion, missed this year’s event because she’s representing Canada at the Milan Cortina Olympics. Canada’s first game of the Olympics tournament is against Denmark on Feb. 12.

Einarson, lead Karlee Burgess, second Shannon Birchard and vice-skip/third Val Sweeting will represent Canada at the BKT World Women’s Curling Championship March 14-22 at the Markin MacPhail Centre at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary.

It was the sixth Tournament of Hearts title for Birchard, who first won it in 2018 with Jennifer Jones when she filled in for Lawes, who was competing at the PyeongChang Olympics. Birchard also won it with Einarson in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Jennifer Jones, Colleen Jones, and Jill Officer are the only other curlers to win the national championship six times.

“It’s incredible,” said Birchard. “To get one in my career would have been a dream come true and this is just absolutely mind blowing.

“To be among some legends of the sport and people that I’ve looked up to for my entire life is just, it’s unbelievable.”

Lawes had not reached the final of the Canadian women’s curling championship since she won the 2015 title as the third on Jennifer Jones’s Manitoba rink.

Lawes’s final stone in the second end was light, allowing Einarson to pick up an easy steal for the first point of the game.

A second Lawes error helped Einarson earn another point. The Manitoba skip tried a short-angle runback in the fourth but her stone failed to roll deep enough into the house, leading to another Einarson steal for a 2-0 Canada lead.

Lawes tied it 2-2 in the sixth thanks to an Einarson mistake. The Canada skipped missed her takeout attempt with the final stone of the end, sailing it through the house, allowing Lawes to make an easy draw for two.

In the seventh, Einarson’s double takeout to try and clear the house was nearly successful but one of Lawes’s rocks barely held on to the red ring for a single and Manitoba’s first lead of the game.

Earlier Sunday, Einarson beat Alberta’s Selena Sturmay 12-5 in the semifinal.

She had to take the long way to the final after Lawes routed Einarson 10-2 in eight ends in the 1/2 Page playoff game on Saturday.

“We definitely don’t do things the easy way on this team,” joked Einarson between games. “We’ve been through the semifinal the majority of the time, I think.

“It’s nice to get our feet under us and get used to the ice instead of sitting around all day.”

Sturmay’s bronze was the first time she reached the podium at the Tournament of Hearts. She said she learned a lot over the course of the event.

“I’m just really proud of the girls for showing up all week,” said Sturmay, who is seven months pregnant. “You don’t come to this event to lose and I just want to say thank you to the girls for playing as well as they did.

“At the end of the day, I think we just need to go in debrief, reflect on it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2026.

John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press