Scotties opens Friday!

2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts kicks off Friday in Calgary

Three former Canadian Under-21 champion skips will lead their teams into the opening draw of the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, which gets underway Friday at the WinSport Event Centre in Calgary.

And two of them — Alberta’s Selena Sturmay (Edmonton), who won the New Holland Canadian Under-21 Championship in 2019, and Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes (Winnipeg), who won back-to-back national U21 titles in 2008 and 2009 — will go head to head in the opening draw at 6 p.m. (all times Mountain).

Jennifer Jones, who announced Tuesday that she will retiring from four-player curling at the conclusion of this season, will play her first game in her final Scotties Tournament of Hearts appearance Saturday at 1 p.m. when her team from Winnipeg and Altona, Man., takes on Nova Scotia’s Team Heather Smith.

All four sheets will be in play on opening night, with the other first-night matchups featuring four-time defending champs Team Canada, Team Kerri Einarson (Gimli, Man.) playing Quebec’s Team Laurie St-Georges (Dollard-des-Ormeaux/Laval); 2013 Canadian Under-21 champ Corryn Brown and her team from Kamloops, B.C., plays 2023 Scotties bronze-medallists Team Northern Ontario, skipped by Krista McCarville (Thunder Bay); and Saskatchewan’s Team Skylar Ackerman (Saskatoon) is up against Prince Edward Island’s Team Jane DiCarlo (Crapaud) in a battle of Scotties rookie skips.

While Einarson, vice-skip Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Harris (the team is rounded out by alternate Krysten Karwacki and coach Reid Carruthers) are chasing a record fifth consecutive Scotties win, there are others in the field chasing history at the same time.

Jones is looking for a record seventh Scotties title; she currently shares the record for Scotties wins with former teammate Jill Officer and Colleen Jones (who is coaching Nova Scotia’s Team Heather Smith at the 2024 Scotties).

Birchard, meanwhile, would join that select company of six-time winners with a win in Calgary. In addition to her four titles won with Team Einarson, she won her first Scotties title in 2018 as a member of Team Jennifer Jones.

Thirteen provincial/territorial champions (Nunavut withdrew from the event last month), defending champions Team Canada and four teams that qualified based on based on Canadian Team Ranking System standings will be in Calgary.

Teams will play a complete eight-game round robin within their pools. From there, the top three teams in each pool advance to the playoffs.

There will be no tiebreakers; if teams are tied for a playoff spot, head-to-head results will be the first tiebreaker, and if that doesn’t resolve the tie, Last-Shot Draw rankings will rank the teams — the same formula used at World Championship events and the Winter Olympics.

The playoff format will see the first-place team from Pool A meeting second place from Pool B, and vice versa, in the first round of the playoffs at noon (all times Mountain) on Feb. 23, with the winners going directly to the Page playoff 1-2 game, while the losers meet the third-place finishers in the pools Feb. 23 at 6 p.m. The winners of those games will advance to the Page playoff 3-4 game.

The standard Page playoffs commence with the winner of the Page 1v2 game on Saturday, Feb. 24, at 6 p.m., advancing directly to the final, and the loser plays the winner of the Page 3v4 game (scheduled for noon on Saturday) in the semifinal. 

The semifinal (Sunday, Feb. 25, at noon) winner takes on the winner of the Page 1v2 game in the final at 6 p.m. on Sunday. The winner will represent Canada at the 2024 BKT Tires World Women’s Curling Championship March 16-24 in Sydney, N.S.

Here’s a look at how the two pools are set up:

(Teams listed according to overall seeding based on CTRS standings as of today, and listed in order of skip [player calling the shots], vice-skip [player holding the broom for the skip], second, lead, alternate, coach/High Performance Consultant)

* — denotes provincial champion for provinces with more than one team representing.

Pool A

• 3. Team Canada, Kerri Einarson (Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard, Briane Harris, Krysten Karwacki, Reid Carruthers; Gimli, Man.)
• *-4. Manitoba-Lawes, Kaitlyn Lawes (Selena Njegovan, Jocelyn Peterman, Kristin MacCuish, Connor Njegovan; Winnipeg)
• 5. Alberta, Selena Sturmay (Danielle Schmiemann, Dezaray Hawes, Paige Papley, Ted Appelman; Edmonton)
• 8. British Columbia-Brown, Corryn Brown (Erin Pincott, Jenn Armstrong, Sam Fisher, Jaelyn Cotter, Jim Cotter; Kamloops)
• 9. Saskatchewan, Skylar Ackerman (Ashley Thevenot, Taylor Stremick, Kaylin Skinner, Amber Holland, Patrick Ackerman; Saskatoon)
• 12. Northern Ontario, Krista McCarville (Andrea Kelly, Kendra Lilly, Ashley Sippala, Sarah Potts, Rick Lang; Thunder Bay, Ont.)
• 13. Quebec, Laurie St-Georges (Jamie Sinclair, Emily Riley, Kelly Middaugh, Marie-France Larouche, François Roberge; Glenmore & Laval-sur-le-Lac, Que.)
• 16. Prince Edward Island, Jane DiCarlo [throws third stones] (Veronica Mayne [throws fourth stones], Sabrina Smith, Whitney Jenkins, Emily Best, Daryell Nowlan; Crapaud)
• 17. Newfoundland & Labrador, Stacie Curtis (Erica Curtis, Julie Hynes, Camille Burt, Jessica Wiseman, Eugene Trickett; St. John’s)

Pool B

• 1. Ontario-Homan, Rachel Homan (Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew, Sarah Wilkes, Rachel Brown, Don Bartlett; Ottawa)
• 2. Manitoba-Jones, Jennifer Jones (Emily Zacharias [throws second stones], Karlee Burgess [throws third stones], Lauren Lenentine, Glenn Howard, Winnipeg/Altona)
• *-6. Ontario-Inglis, Danielle Inglis (Kira Brunton, Calissa Daly, Cassandra de Groot, Kimberly Tuck, Steve Acorn; Ottawa)
• 7. Manitoba-Cameron, Kate Cameron (Meghan Walter, Kelsey Rocque, Mackenzie Elias, Taylor McDonald; Winnipeg)
• *-10. British Columbia, Clancy Grandy (Kayla MacMillan, Lindsay Dubue, Sarah Loken, Marcel Rocque; Vancouver)
• 11. Northwest Territories, Kerry Galusha [throws lead stones] (Jo-Ann Rizzo [throws fourth stones], Margot Flemming [throws third stones], Sarah Koltun [throws second stones], Shona Barbour, Kevin Koe; Yellowknife)
• 14. Nova Scotia, Heather Smith [throws third stones] (Jill Brothers [throws fourth stones], Marie Christianson, Erin Carmody, Taylour Stevens, Colleen Jones; Halifax)
• 15. New Brunswick, Melissa Adams (Jaclyn Crandall, Molli Ward, Kendra Lister, Kayla Russell, Alex Robichaud; Fredericton)
• 18. Yukon, Bayly Scoffin (Kerry Foster, Raelyn Helston, Kimberly Tuor, Helen Strong, Kevin Patterson; Whitehorse)

Note: Because some matchups featuring the pre-qualified teams were pre-set as part of ticket marketing campaigns, the pools were adjusted accordingly but kept as even as possible. The Curling Canada Athletes Council was informed of this possibility, and the methodology that would be used to keep the pools equitable, in the fall. The average overall CTRS ranking for Pool A is 27.33, and for 29.1 for Pool B.

For the entire 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts schedule, click here.

Tickets are available online through Ticketmaster or at curling.ca/tickets. There is no on-site box office at WinSport before the event, but it will be open during the event. Ticket inquiries can also be made by calling (587) 885-0953 or emailing [email protected].

All tickets are subject to standard facility and ticket service fees.

TSN/RDS, the official broadcast partners of Curling Canada’s Season of Champions, will provide complete coverage of the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts. CLICK HERE for the broadcast schedule.