Crocker heading home on Road to the Roar

Laura Crocker’s current address on the competitive curling circuit may be Edmonton but her roots in the game are firmly entrenched in Ontario. So you know she’ll be feeling right at home at the 2013 Capital One Road to the Roar, presented by Monsanto, Nov. 5-10 in Kitchener. The 22-year-old skip, competing out of the Saville Centre in Alberta’s capital city, played lead for the Rachel Homan team that won the gold medal at the 2010 Canadian Junior Women’s Curling Championship and took silver at the world championship in Flims, Switzerland. Crocker will be leading the youngest crew in the 24-team field at the Road to the Roar with the opportunity to advance to the 2013 Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings, Canada’s stepping stone to Sochi in 2014. Third Erin Carmody, at the age of 25, is the veteran on the team that includes 23-year-old Rebecca Pattison and Jen Gates on the front end. The entire team has excelled in junior championship play, but Carmody is the only one with experience at the top level of national competition. In 2010, she threw last stones for Kathy O’Rourke’s Prince Edward Island team that came within an extra-end of upsetting Team Canada’s Jennifer Jones in the final of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Crocker and Gates, representing Wilfrid Laurier University, have come out on top in the past two CIS-CCA Canadian University Championships, earning a trip to Trentino, Italy in December to compete in the Winter Universiade (World University Games). “You Gotta Be There” when 24 teams – 12 men’s and 12 women’s – slide out of the hacks in the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium Complex for their last chance to keep the Olympic dream alive. Click here to reserve your seats for all the excitement!