Another year, another trip across the country for Team Galusha as they fly the territory’s flag at the Canadian women’s curling championship.
The Scotties Tournament of Hearts kicks off this Friday, Jan. 24 in Thunder Bay, Ont., with Kerry Galusha and her rink of Jo-Ann Rizzo, Margot Flemming, Sarah Koltun, Megan Koehler and coach Shona Barbour, as one of 18 rinks from around the country. Those travelling from Yellowknife—Galusha, Koehler, Flemming and Barbour—left on Tuesday morning. Rizzo and Koltun are both in Ontario already and will meet up with the team in Thunder Bay.
Pool B is where the ladies will do battle as they take on Alberta, Team Canada, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, B.C., Quebec and Yukon.
“We’re excited to get going,” said Galusha, who will be making her 19th appearance at the event. “The only team we haven’t played in our pool is Quebec but I like how our pool looks.”
The draw was just announced late last week as there was still some doubt as to whether the event would happen at all under the current circumstances in Ontario but the green light was given by the provincial government as a “select professional and elite amateur sport league,” as defined by Ontario’s Ministry of Health. It will be similar to what Galusha and company faced one year ago in Calgary: the 18 teams will be split into two pools of nine for the round-robin.
The big difference, however, comes in the playoff round. There will be no championship pool, as has been the format in years past. Instead, the top three teams in each pool will advance to the playoff round; the first-place teams will receive a bye to the second round.
“No championship pool takes away one spot (for the playoffs) but we feel like third place is definitely up for grabs,” said Galusha. “We want to have a strong start and have a good first three days.”
Galusha will open things up against Nova Scotia on Saturday afternoon with Friday being a practice day. That’s where the team will get their first chance to see how the ice plays and it will be arena ice, which plays very different from club ice.
“The big thing is getting the draw weight and getting used to the ice,” she said. “If you can get the draw weight down, you’ll have a decent week. We’ve been on arena ice in two events already this season, which is usually two more than we normally get. It’s been a couple of months since we’ve played on arena ice but we’ll be more prepared this time around.”
And just like it was in Calgary one year ago, the teams will be in a bubble situation with no fans in attendance. They will either be curling or inside their hotel room with no chance to either dine out or even take a drive around the city.
“We were worried about going and we heard rumours that it wouldn’t happen,” said Galusha. “We’re spending two days in our hotel (before the start) but we’ve been told we’ll get to walk in the parking lot. It’s going to be tough to stay active and that’s a concern but we’ll be ready.”