Meet the Teams: Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario

The 2023 Scotties Tournament of Hearts is slated for Feb. 17-26 at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops, B.C. Eighteen women’s teams will compete in the national curling championship. Meet the teams:

Team Saskatchewan

Not bad for a team that was formed two months before provincial playdowns “just for fun.”

Team Robyn Silvernagle is enjoying its short time together and capped the most recent meeting for the relatively new acquaintances with the skip’s third Saskatchewan crown.

“We’re having a blast,” Silvernagle told CurlSask after the 8-4 win over Team Nancy Martin, explaining her team’s fresh attitude heading into the event. “Let’s put a team together and see if we have a chance.”

They made good on their chances, rebounding from two previous losses to Martin, and now Silvernagle, vice-skip Kelly Schafer, second Sherry Just and lead Kara Thevenot are off to the 2023 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

Silvernagle also competed at the 2019 and 2020 Scotties, finishing third in her first trip. She was joined there by Thevenot.

Schafer is of Scottish decent, born in Dundee before moving to Canada. She competed in the 2010 World Championship in Swift Current, where she finished as a silver medallist with skip Eve Muirhead, before eventually marrying the mayor of the Saskatchewan town, Jerrod Schafer in 2013.

She just recently became a Canadian citizen and prior to that kept her international competitions in place, playing as alternate for Scotland in the 2012 and 2017 World Championships and represented Great Britain at the 2006, 2010 and 2018 Olympics. She has bronze medals from the Worlds in 2007 (a team in which she skipped) and 2017.

Just, the team’s second, had skipped her own teams from 2010 to 2015 before joining Nancy Martin. She got back into the role of skip in 2018 and played on various mixed teams for Brett Barber and Derek Samagalski. She also competed with Tyrel Griffith at the 2018 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials.

Silvernagle was mostly out of the curling picture during the previous two years after delivering her first child. Along with husband Chad, the two welcomed son Kolt, who was born premature and with several health issues. Now 16 months old, Kolt spent nearly a year in hospital and has gone through eight surgeries, with more expected.

Family, friends and the curing fraternity assisted by raising funds to help offset the health-care costs and following the 2023 provincial championship Chad and Kolt raced down to congratulate Robyn on the emotional victory. 

Team Northern Ontario

Krista McCarville, of Thunder Bay, will make it an even 10 appearances at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts after earning the Northern Ontario title.

McCarville has twice finished as a runner-up in the national women’s championship, including last season at her home-town event. The other came in 2016. She also added a bronze medal in 2010 in Sault Ste. Marie.

The veteran skip, vice-skip (who throws lead rocks) Sarah Potts, third Kendra Lilly, second Ashley Sippala, and coach Rick Lang, defeated Krysta Burns 9-4 in the Northern Ontario final. McCarville has twice finished as a bronze medallist at the Tim Hortons Canadian Curling Trials.

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 Tim Hortons Canadian Curling Trials.

Like Lilly, Sippala will also compete in her seventh Scotties, holding the same three medals as her vice-skip. Potts, the daughter of coach Lang, was the alternate for McCarville at the 2010 national championship before joining the team full-time the next season. This will be her sixth Scotties and she also holds the same three Scotties medals as Lilly and Sippala and the bronze from the Tim Hortons Canadian Curling Trials.

Tickets for the 2023 Scotties Tournament of Hearts can be purchased at https://www.curling.ca/2023scotties/tickets/