Krista McCarville’s road to hometown Scotties Tournament of Hearts intense

Team Northern Ontario skip Krista McCarville lines up a shot as they play Team Manitoba-Lawes at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

Her face plastered on billboards in her hometown of Thunder Bay, Ont., turned up the heat on Krista McCarville’s curling team this winter.

Marketing aside, she and her teammates still had to win Northern Ontario to gain entry to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts starting Friday in Thunder Bay’s Fort William Gardens.

McCarville stared down near-elimination twice on the final weekend of playdowns, also in her hometown at the Port Arthur Curling Club, to wear Northern Ontario’s colours again at the Canadian curling championship.

“It was quite intense,” McCarville said. “We had some very scary moments.”

McCarville scored four in the 10th end of a 9-8 win over Lauren Mann just to make playoffs. Her team battled back from a 4-2 deficit after five ends in the final against Emma Artichuk for McCarville to make a draw to the four-foot rings for a 6-5 victory.

“I’ll be honest. We felt a ton of pressure this year,” the skip said. “Here in Thunder Bay, my face has been all over for the past couple months. It’s pressure we love too.”

McCarville, who will make her 12th career Hearts appearance, reached the 2022 final in Thunder Bay where her team fell 9-6 to Kerri Einarson.

That championship game was played in front of fewer than 500 people who were allowed into the Gardens on the tournament’s final weekend when COVID-19 restrictions eased slightly.

The chance to really feel like a hometown favourite in 2025 was one McCarville would have been devastated to miss.

“It’s super-exciting to have a do-over,” McCarville said. “It’s probably an experience that not too many people get to experience and I’m one of the lucky ones that gets to.”

McCarville, third Andrea Kelly and a front-end rotation of Ashley Sippala, Kendra Lilly and Sarah Potts open Friday against Saskatchewan’s Nancy Martin.

Reigning world champion Rachel Homan’s team starts its defence of its national crown against Prince Edward Island’s Jane DiCarlo on Friday, when Alberta’s Selena Sturmay and Kayla Skrlik are up against B.C.‘s Corryn Brown and New Brunswick’s Melissa Adams, respectively.

The 18 teams divided into two pools play eight games apiece with the top three in each pool advancing. Those half-dozen get whittled down to the four Page playoff teams on the final weekend.

The winner in the Feb. 23 final represents Canada at the world championship March 15-23 in Uijeongbu, South Korea.

The victors also claim $100,000 in prize money, and a berth in November’s Olympic curling trials in Halifax, as long as that team finishes in the top six at the world championship.

Homan and Einarson already have trials berths, so should either prevail in Thunder Bay, the trials spot goes to the top-ranked women’s team in Canada at the end of the season.

Four-time champion Einarson’s lineup was a revolving door this season because of second Shannon Birchard’s knee injury and the absence of lead Briane Harris while her doping case was reviewed.

Harris was eventually found to be not at fault, but not in time for a return to Einarson’s Thunder Bay roster. The disbandment of Chelsea Carey’s team in January coincided with Einarson recruiting former Carey teammates Karlee Burgess and Lauren Lenentine at second and alternate respectively.

The Carey team’s dissolution also had a domino effect of Einarson taking over its trials spot, and Sturmay bypassing Alberta’s provincials to gain a Thunder Bay berth alongside Einarson and Kaitlyn Lawes as the top-ranked teams last season behind Homan.

Meanwhile, McCarville’s is a team that doesn’t travel the bonspiel circuit as much as Homan or Einarson. Kelly, who skipped New Brunswick to a bronze medal in Thunder Bay in 2022, is in her second season as McCarville’s vice.

“The big thing is we all have the same view of curling. We love curling, it’s our passion, but we have jobs, we have families, we have a lot of other things going on in our lives that are important as well,” McCarville said. “Just jelling as a team is pretty easy for us.

“We’ve had a good year. We don’t travel a ton, but the spiels we’ve been in we’ve qualified (for playoffs) or won. We’ve had training weekends where we’re getting together as well. We have been together quite a bit even though it might not look like it on the circuit.”

Another opportunity to win her first career Scotties Tournament of Hearts, and in her hometown, is precious to the 42-year-old teacher.

“I remember at a young age thinking I wanted to just go to the Scotties,” McCarville said. “Then I went to the Scotties and now I dream of winning the Scotties. I’ve been close a couple times.

“Winning the Scotties in my hometown would be the most amazing thing anyone would ever dream of.”

-- With files from Gregory Strong.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2025.