Meet the Teams: MB – Einarson, Nunavut, Québec, and Manitoba

MEET THE TEAMS COMPETING AT THE 2025 SCOTTIES TOURNAMENT OF HEARTS

By: Mario Annicchiarico

The 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts is slated for Feb. 14-23 at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay, Ont. Eighteen women’s teams will compete in the national curling championship. Meet the teams: 

Pre-Qualifier 1 – Team Kerri Einarson 

Facing adversity all season, Team Kerri Einarson has a very different look heading into the team’s sixth-straight appearance at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. 

The foursome was not finalized until January with the late addition of Nova Scotian-turned-Manitoban Karlee Burgess for the prestigious women’s national curling championship. Burgess left Team Chelsea Carey to replace second Shannon Birchard, whose comeback from a knee injury fell short. 

She joins skip Einarson, vice-skip Val Sweeting, lead Krysten Karwacki and coach Reid Carruthers. Team Einarson came into last year’s national event looking for a fifth-straight Scotties championship, but fell short of the feat that has never been accomplished. 

In 2023, Team Einarson matched Colleen Jones’s mark of four consecutive titles achieved from 2001-04 for Nova Scotia and Team Canada. The final three for Einarson and Co. were as Team Canada. 

This is Einarson’s eighth trip to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, also competing in 2016 and 2018 prior to this current six-year run. She finished as runner-up in 2018 to Team Jennifer Jones. Einarson also claimed the 2021 Home Hardware Canadian Mixed Doubles Championship with Brad Gushue. 

Sweeting has the most Scotties experience on the team, appearing eight previous times at nationals and finishing as the runner-up twice in 2014 and 2015 as a skip out of Alberta, prior to joining this successful Einarson team. 

Burgess was instrumental as third for Jennifer Jones’ Manitoba team that finished as runners-up at the last two Scotties. This will be her fifth straight trip to the national championship, and she is a three-time World Junior Championship gold medallist from 2016, ’18 and ’20, while finishing second in 2019 and third in 2017. Burgess was also a member of the victorious 2016 Winter Youth Olympics team. 

Karwacki will compete in her sixth Scotties Tournament of Hearts, with the previous four coming as an alternate. She finished second with Michelle Englot in 2017 and was the fifth on Einarson’s championship teams from 2021-23. At last year’s national championship, she played lead for Einarson. 

Team Einarson’s tumultuous season – which included a championship win at the HearingLife Tour Challenge earlier this season, edging Rachel Homan 5-4 – has included Brittany Tran, Dawn McEwen, Joanne Courtney and Laura Walker at various times as alternates. 

Lauren Lenentine will be the team’s alternate at the Scotties. 

Team Nunavut 

After a year away from competing in the national championship, Team Nunavut returns to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, but with a new skip at the helm. 

Julia Weagle joins the foursome as an import, leading a team rounded out by veteran Sadie Pinksen at vice-skip, Leigh Gustafson at second, lead Alison Taylor and coach Colin Hodgson. The team was acclaimed. 

Nunavut returns to action after a year away from the national championship as no teams registered for playdowns in 2024 and Iqaluit’s curling rink was closed last year to be part of a set for the new show North of North. 

“We’re all very, very excited to be Team Nunavut and getting to represent (Nunavut) again at the national level,” Gustafson, who was the alternate for Nunavut’s team in 2023, appearing in two games, told the CBC. 

Weagle is the younger sister of three-time Scotties champion Lisa Weagle and the manager of guest services at Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group and was also previously employed by Curling Ontario. She played lead, with Lisa at second, for skip Robyn Mattie in 2009-10. 

This will be Julia Weagle’s first national competition, but she has competed in eight provincial championships in Ontario, with highlights as a runner-up at the 2019 Ontario Mixed, where she was a vice-skip for Team Jonathan Beuk. She was also a finalist at the provincial women’s championship in 2018 as a second with Team Chrissy Cadorin. 

She was also recognized as the Trent University curling MVP in 2007 and received the Trent University Athletic Award for outstanding contributions to the varsity athletic program in 2009. 

This will be Pinksen’s eighth trip to nationals, previously playing as vice-skip with Brigitte MacPhail in 2022 and 2023 and Lori Eddy in 2021. Pinksen had previously skipped her own teams to that and competed in eight Canadian Junior championships and a pair of national mixed championships in 2018 and 2019. 

This will be Taylor’s third trip to the Scotties, competing in 2022 and 2023 with Pinksen and MacPhail. Taylor was a member of 2018 Iqaluit Curling Club team that earned Nunavut’s first-ever victory at the Everest Canadian Curling Club Championships, the first win in eight years for a Nunavut representative in that event. 

Team Québec 

Considered to be one of the most popular young curlers in the country, Laurie St-Georges will make her fifth straight Scotties Tournament of Hearts appearance after claiming the provincial championship. 

But the Québec team will once again feature a lineup change as Lisa Weagle joined the squadron for the 2024-25 season. 

Skip St-Georges, vice-skip Jamie Sinclair (who joined the team last season), second Emily Riley and Weagle defeated Emilia Gagne 9-2 thanks to deuces in the first, fifth and seventh ends and single steals in the third and ninth clinched the provincial victory. 

It’s St-Georges’ third straight earned Québec title after she was named the representative for the province in her first two Scotties Tournament of Hearts after the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled both the 2021 and 2022 Québec playdowns. 

Team St-Georges’ first venture to the Scotties, inside the Calgary pandemic bubble in 2021, was an impressive one as the team finished 6-2 in round-robin play, before finishing 6-6 following the championship round. In Thunder Bay, Ont., the following year, Team St-Georges went 3-5. Last year St-Georges was 4-4. 

St-Georges herself was also part of the Québec squad that captured the 2022 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship before finishing third at 2023 World Mixed Curling Championship. She had also competed in three New Holland Canadian Junior Championships, finishing as runner-up to Team Kaitlyn Jones of Nova Scotia in 2018. In her first trip to the Scotties, the young skip also won the Marj Mitchell Sportsmanship Award, voted on by players. 

Riley has been a member of St-Georges’ team for the last nine seasons, while Sinclair – who joined the team last year – was born in Alaska, but grew up in Manotick, Ontario and won gold at the 2007 Canada Winter Games before committing to represent the U.S. in 2014. 

Sinclair claimed three U.S. national championships from 2017-19 and added runner-up finishes in 2020 and 2021. She finished second and third, respectively, at the 2017 and 2021 U.S. Olympic curling trials. 

Weagle is a veteran of the national championship, competing in her ninth Scotties, but first since 2021. She was a member of the Scotties gold-medallist Rachel Homan team in 2013, 2014 and 2017 and also finished second in 2019 and 2020. In 2021 she was the Scotties first-team all star at lead for Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones and also represented Canada at the Olympics with Jones.  

She has two Canadian Curling Trials championships to her name from 2017 and 2021 – the first came with Team Homan – and Weagle earned a gold, silver and bronze at the World Curling Championships. 

Weagle also competes in mixed doubles with teammate John Epping and the two finished third at the recent Canadian Mixed Doubles Trials. 

Francois Roberge will serve as the team coach. 

Team Manitoba 

Kate Cameron will make her second-straight appearance as a skip at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, only with a twist to her Granite Curling Club rink from Winnipeg. 

Taylor McDonald, an alternate on last year’s team due to pregnancy, moves back into the vice-skip position, while Brianna Cullen takes over at second from departed Kelsey Rocque (who filled in for McDonald). Mackenzie Elias returns at the lead position. 

Team Cameron edged Team Beth Peterson 7-6 to earn the Manitoba berth to the 2025 Scotties, where Cameron will be making her eighth appearance at nationals and sixth straight. She won a silver medal at the 2017 Scotties with skip Michelle Englot and added bronze last year. In 2021, she added another Scotties bronze to her trophy cabinet when she curled with Team Laura Walker. 

Cameron has represented Manitoba, Alberta, Team Canada and Team Wild Card at the Scotties. The Team Canada distinction came in 2018 when Englot was named Team Canada as Scotties champion Team Rachel Homan was representing the country at the Olympics. Englot’s runner-up finish in the 2017 Scotties gave her the spot in 2018. 

This is McDonald’s seventh appearance at the Scotties winning bronze with Cameron last season and in 2021 with the Walker team. She is also a gold medallist from the 2014 World Junior Championship and the 2017 Winter Universiade.  

Cullen is a Scotties rookie and a product of the strong University of Alberta curling program. She represented Canada with skip Serena Gray-Withers at both the 2023 and 2025 FISU World University Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. and Torino, Italy, respectively, earning bronze in Italy. 

Cullen was expected to represent Canada at the 2021 World Junior Curling Championship, but the event was cancelled due to Covid-19. 

Elias makes her third straight appearance at the Scotties, having earned bronze last season with Cameron and competed in 2023 with a Wild Card team led by skip Abby Ackland. That team had placed second to Team Jennifer Jones at the Manitoba Scotties but earned enough CTRS points to advance to the 2023 national women’s championship. 

Tickets for the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts can be purchased at https://www.curling.ca/2025scotties/tickets/