Latest news with #Skrlik
Calgary Herald
5 days ago
- Sport
- Calgary Herald
Kayla Skrlik's highly ranked Calgary crew earns early invite to 2026 Scotties Tournament of Hearts
Kayla Skrlik's Calgary team has already secured a spot in next year's Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Article content The Garrison Curling Club crew is among three squads that have been added to each of the 2026 Canadian men's and women's curling championships, Curling Canada announced Friday. Article content Four-time champion Kerri Einarson and her team from Gimli, Man., have been added to the field of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, set for Jan. 23-Feb. 1 at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga, Ont. She will be joined by Skrlik and Christina Black of Halifax. Article content Article content The Skrlik rink, which includes third Margot Flemming, second Ashton Skrlik (Kayla's sister) and lead Geri-Lynn Ramsay, is set to make its third Scotties appearance after competing in the 2023 and '25 championships. Article content Article content Hometown favourite and six-time champion Brad Gushue was added to the Montana's Brier, set for Feb. 27-March 8 at the Mary Brown's Centre in St. John's, N.L., along with Winnipeg's Matt Dunstone and Saskatoon's Mike McEwen. Article content The teams were awarded spots based on their 2024-25 Canadian Team Ranking System results. Article content Two-time defending Scotties champion Rachel Homan of Ottawa and defending Brier champion Brad Jacobs of The Glencoe Club in Calgary had already qualified for their respective tournaments. Article content
Edmonton Journal
5 days ago
- Sport
- Edmonton Journal
Kayla Skrlik's highly ranked Calgary crew earns early invite to 2026 Scotties Tournament of Hearts
Kayla Skrlik's Calgary team has already secured a spot in next year's Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Article content The Garrison Curling Club crew is among three squads that have been added to each of the 2026 Canadian men's and women's curling championships, Curling Canada announced Friday. Article content Four-time champion Kerri Einarson and her team from Gimli, Man., have been added to the field of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, set for Jan. 23-Feb. 1 at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga, Ont. She will be joined by Skrlik and Christina Black of Halifax. Article content The Skrlik rink, which includes third Margot Flemming, second Ashton Skrlik (Kayla's sister) and lead Geri-Lynn Ramsay, is set to make its third Scotties appearance after competing in the 2023 and '25 championships. Article content Article content Hometown favourite and six-time champion Brad Gushue was added to the Montana's Brier, set for Feb. 27-March 8 at the Mary Brown's Centre in St. John's, N.L., along with Winnipeg's Matt Dunstone and Saskatoon's Mike McEwen. Article content Two-time defending Scotties champion Rachel Homan of Ottawa and defending Brier champion Brad Jacobs of The Glencoe Club in Calgary had already qualified for their respective tournaments. Article content The remaining 14 teams in each tournament will be determined during the coming season. Article content
Vancouver Sun
5 days ago
- Sport
- Vancouver Sun
Kayla Skrlik's highly ranked Calgary crew earns early invite to 2026 Scotties Tournament of Hearts
Kayla Skrlik's Calgary team has already secured a spot in next year's Scotties Tournament of Hearts. The Garrison Curling Club crew is among three squads that have been added to each of the 2026 Canadian men's and women's curling championships, Curling Canada announced Friday. Four-time champion Kerri Einarson and her team from Gimli, Man., have been added to the field of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, set for Jan. 23-Feb. 1 at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga, Ont. She will be joined by Skrlik and Christina Black of Halifax. The Skrlik rink, which includes third Margot Flemming, second Ashton Skrlik (Kayla's sister) and lead Geri-Lynn Ramsay, is set to make its third Scotties appearance after competing in the 2023 and '25 championships. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Hometown favourite and six-time champion Brad Gushue was added to the Montana's Brier, set for Feb. 27-March 8 at the Mary Brown's Centre in St. John's, N.L., along with Winnipeg's Matt Dunstone and Saskatoon's Mike McEwen. The teams were awarded spots based on their 2024-25 Canadian Team Ranking System results. Two-time defending Scotties champion Rachel Homan of Ottawa and defending Brier champion Brad Jacobs of The Glencoe Club in Calgary had already qualified for their respective tournaments. The remaining 14 teams in each tournament will be determined during the coming season. Homan topped the women's 2024-25 rankings, followed by Einarson, Skrlik and Black. Jacobs led the men's rankings, followed by Dunstone, McEwen and Gushue. — With files from Postmedia Sports
CBC
21-02-2025
- Sport
- CBC
Defending champion Homan, Alberta's Skrlik, B.C.'s Brown prep for playoffs at Scotties
Defending champion Rachel Homan carried an unbeaten record into the Scotties Tournament of Hearts playoffs, while Alberta and B.C. locked in their playoff seedings Thursday. Homan capped Pool A play with an 8-0 record after an 8-4 win over Alberta's Selena Sturmay. Alberta's Kayla Skrlik and B.C.'s Corryn Brown both finished 6-2 with Skrlik ranked higher because of a win over Brown in the preliminary round. Skrlik downed Nunavut's Julia Weagle 7-4 and Brown beat Prince Edward Island's Jane DiCarlo 9-2 in the final Pool A draw. The top three teams in each pool advance to the championship round of six Friday when that half-dozen will battle for four Page playoff berths. Pool B's playoff picture was still muddy heading into the evening draw with Manitoba's Kerri Einarson, Ontario's Danielle Inglis, Nova Scotia's Christina Black and Quebec Laurie's St-Georges the front-runners. Defending champion Homan clinches playoff spot, Quebec, Ontario in the hunt at Scotties Sunday's winner at the Fort William Gardens represents Canada at the world championship March 15-23 in Uijeongbu, South Korea, and earns $100,000 in prize money. Homan wanted her Ottawa Curling Club team to both finish pool play strong and continue scouting rock movement and ice behaviour heading into the next round. "It was the opportunity to play on those middle sheets, learn the ice and the rocks, how we need to play moving forward," said Homan. "Unfortunately, it's pretty straight out there. Can be a bit frustrating at times, but this is the ice conditions that we have in this building. Just learning to love them as much as we can and learn them as best we can, how we need to sweep them, how to approach shots and just trying to stay in the moment of every rock." The top two seeds in each pool cross over and meet Friday afternoon with the winners moving onto Saturday's Page playoff between the top two seeds. The losers take on the third seed in the opposite pool with those victors advancing to the Page playoff between the third and fourth seeds. Skrlik skipped a slightly different lineup to a 4-4 record in her Hearts debut two years ago in Kamloops, B.C. With Margot Flemming coming on board for this season at third, sister Ashton and Geri-Lynn Ramsay shifting positions and the latter holding the broom for Skrlik, the Garrison Curling Club foursome out of Calgary played 13 events this season to forge team chemistry. Skrlik reached the final of September's single knockout PointsBet Invitational in Calgary where the team fell 8-3 to Homan. "I think this is our 79th or 80th game of the season, so we've played a lot," said Skrlik. "It's been very, very beneficial this year, with Margot being new in the lineup, Ashton being in a new position, and Geri-Lyn being in a new position. "We've gone from our first time showing up, playing the Scotties, not playing almost a single team in the field, to playing quite a few of these teams. It's really, really paid off." Flemming played through a bad cold Thursday. Ramsay sat out the team's opener in Thunder Bay, Ont., with the flu. Illness has struck a few teams in the tournament with Nunavut down to three players against Skrlik on Thursday. Brown, who is almost six months pregnant, reached the playoffs for the first time in the tournament's current format. Her Kamloops Curling Club lineup includes Erin Pincott, Sarah Koltun and Samantha Fisher. "This is the most relaxed we've ever played," Brown said. "I don't think any of us have really felt kind of the nerves. We've had some really good kind of guidance from [coach] Jim [Cotter] and our sports psychologist Tracey Bilsky, to kind of guide us through that. "We've set up kind of a really good foundation throughout the season. We've been able to implement that this week." Fisher topped all leads at 93 per cent shooting accuracy in pool play. "All the girls have played really well all week, but I think it really starts with our lead," said Brown. "The lead can either make it really hard or really easy, and Sam's done a fabulous job all week to kind of lead the way for us and really kind of put us in a really good position in all games." Homan, Mouat teams to clash in battle of sexes Homan and Scotland's Bruce Mouat will clash in curling's battle of the sexes in Toronto. The top-ranked women's and men's teams in the world square off in the Rio Mare Battle of the Sexes on April 7 at the Mattamy Athletic Centre a day before the final Grand Slam of the season. The AMJ Players' Championship is in the same arena April -13. The eight-end skins game will feature celebrity coaches, guest appearances and unique rule twists, The Curling Group said Thursday in a statement. A portion of ticket proceeds and $1,000 per end will go to each team's charity of choice. "Knowing that our funds from this event will go to the Sandra Schmirler Foundation makes it even more special," Homan said in a statement. Mouat's chosen charity was Charlie Boy's Cancer Fundraiser. "We know Team Homan will bring their A-game, but we're ready for a battle," Mouat said. Homan's 52-4 season as of Thursday included securing the top seed in her team's pool at the Canadian women's curling championship in Thunder Bay, Ont. Her team was attempting back-to-back titles at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. The final is Sunday.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Rachel Homan closes in on playoff berth at Scotties Tournament of Hearts
THUNDER BAY, Ont. — Rachel Homan's curling team was virtually, if not mathematically, assured a playoff spot at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts with a fifth straight win. The defending champions and reigning world champions remained unbeaten with a 7-4 win over New Brunswick's Melissa Adams on Tuesday. In the four years the Canadian women's curling championship has been an 18-team affair, only once has five wins not been enough for the playoff cutline. It happened to be Homan's team in 2023, with six wins in Pool B, that shut the door on teams below it. "We're pretty close to playoffs," Homan concurred. "Just have to keep getting better. "It wasn't a great performance today, so just need to keep building as the week goes on. Just learn the ice a little bit. We had lots of curl yesterday and then lost it all today. I guess just keeping up with the draws as they go." Homan, vice Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew and lead Sarah Wilkes out of the Ottawa Curling Club extended their run of wins in the tournament to 17. Homan is the only woman to have skipped teams to unbeaten records twice in the tournament (2014, 2024), but running the table in back-to-back years wasn't a priority for the 35-year-old. "It's never on my mind for sure," she said. "It doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, we want to be in the final and we hope to make more shots that the other team, but we're a long ways away from that right now, so just focus on what you need to do now to come out tomorrow strong." The top three teams in each pool of nine advance to the round of six, who will battle for four Page playoff berths. Sunday's winner represents Canada in the world championship March March 15-23 in Uijeongbu, South Korea, and earns $100,000 in prize money. Homan (5-0) takes on B.C.'s Corryn Brown (4-1) in a key Pool A matchup Wednesday morning. Alberta's Kayla Skrlik got to 4-2 with a 10-5 doubling of Nancy Martin that dropped Saskatchewan to 3-3. Skrlik's spectacular double tap double takeout to score five in the sixth end cracked the game open. "It sealed the deal pretty much," Skrlik said. "We will be competing against Nancy for a playoff spot the rest of the week, so to win that one and go head-to-head in the win column against her is huge in our playoff run." Tiebreaker games are no longer in the format. The first tiebreaker is the head-to-head result followed by the cumulative results of last-stone draws that precede each game. Martin has just two games remaining Wednesday in the pool, so her team could spend Thursday awaiting its fate. "Thursday may be an interesting day," the skip said. Alberta's Selena Sturmay was 3-2 after a 9-4 win over Prince Edward Island's Jane DiCarlo. Northern Ontario's Krista McCarville won a second straight games to get to 2-4. Her team doubled Nunavut's Julia Weagle 8-5. Ontario's Danielle Inglis (4-1) had the Pool B evening draw off while others chased her team. Manitoba's Christina Black and Manitoba's Kate Cameron were 3-1 and Quebec's Laurie St-Georges was 3-2. Northwest Territories' Kerry Galusha upset four-time champion Kerri Einarson of Manitoba 9-6 in an extra end to put both teams at 2-2 after the morning draw. Galusha didn't throw her final stone after Einarson's attempted draw was short of the rings. Manitoba's Kaitlyn Lawes was 2-3 after a 13-3 victory over Newfoundland and Labrador's Brooke Godsland (0-5). Inglis defeated Yukon's Bayly Scoffiin (1-3) by a score of 9-6. Cameron doubled St-Georges 12-6. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 18, 2025. Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press
