THUNDER BAY -- The 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts is slated for Feb. 14 to Feb. 23 at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay, Ont. Eighteen women’s teams will compete in the national curling championship. Meet the teams:
Team Northern Ontario
Krista McCarville’s Thunder Bay rink, comprised of vice-skip Andrea Kelly, second Kendra Lilly, lead Ashley Sippala and alternate Sarah Potts, is expected to have a huge backing as the local favourite for the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
McCarville, who has twice finished as a runner-up in the national women’s championship (including 2022 at her home-town event), is expected to build off the fan support, unlike in 2022 when Covid-19 kept fans at bay.
This will be the skip’s 12th appearance and fourth straight at the Scotties where she also finished third twice in 2010 and 2023.
Kelly, who previously played out of New Brunswick, will be making her 13th appearance at the Scotties, including her fourth straight. She is a bronze-medal winner from the 2005 World Junior Championship, 2022 Scotties and 2003 Canada Winter Games.
Lilly was an alternate for McCarville back at the 2009 Scotties and then joined the team full time the following season. She has seven previous Scotties appearances to her name with the two silver and the bronze Scotties finishes, as well as a bronze from the 2021 Canadian Curling Trials.
Sippala will compete in her ninth Scotties, holding the same three medals as Lilly and Potts. She was the alternate for McCarville at the 2010 national championship before joining the team full-time the next season. She was also a bronze medallist from the 2021 Canadian Curling Trials.
This will be Potts’ eighth Scotties and she also holds the same three Scotties medals as Lilly and Sippala and the bronze from the Canadian Curling Trials.
Team McCarville earned this trip the hard way, trailing Emma Artichuk through the first six ends of the Northern Ontario championship game, the eventual victors stole one in in the seventh and eighth ends to grab its first lead. The teams then traded singles for a 6-5 McCarville victory. She also needed four in the final end of her last round-robin game to edge Timmins' Lauren Mann just to make the playoff round.
Two-time former world champion Rick Lang is the team’s coach.
Team Prince Edward Island
Continuing its flair for the dramatics, Team Jane DiCarlo claimed its second straight provincial title, this time bouncing back from a 7-1 deficit in the championship-clinching game to earn the right to travel to its second-straight Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
Team DiCarlo, with last-rock thrower Veronica Mayne, second Sabrina Smith, lead Whitney Jenkins and coach Kathy O’Rourke rallied to defeat Hillary Selkirk 8-7 in the 2025 title-clinching game.
Last year, Team DiCarlo faced three opposing stones when Mayne was forced to make an angle raise for the championship win. At the 2024 Scotties the team went winless in eight games.
DiCarlo had represented the University of Prince Edward Island at three U SPORTS Curling Championships. She is also the 2014 Canadian Club Championship silver-medallist.
This is the second trip to the Scotties for the entire team, with the only change at coach where the veteran O’Rourke takes over.
“It feels different (this year),” DiCarlo told The Guardian. “Last year, we went out and thought, ‘Let’s play, let’s try to do our best,’ and this year it was like, ‘We want to win it again; we want to go back to the Scotties.’
“We want to have a good performance there as well. It really means a lot. We put a lot of work in this season and added Kathy O’Rourke as our coach. Having a coach has been such a bonus and we really had a great season and this is a great way to cap it off. This is what we’ve been working for.”
Mayne and Smith are sisters and represented Prince Edward Island at the 2022 Everest Canadian Curling Club Championships at West Edmonton Mall. Smith also previously competed for UPEI and was Mayne’s vice-skip on a team that finished second at the 2020 PEI Scotties. Jenkins played lead on that rink.
Jenkins competed at two New Holland U-21 Canadian Curling Championships for Prince Edward Island in 2010 and 2011.
Pre-Qualifier 3 – Team Alberta – Sturmay
Team Selena Sturmay, of the Saville Centre in Edmonton, forms the third pre-qualifying team and makes her way to her second straight Scott Tournament of Hearts, competing last season as Alberta champion.
Sturmay is joined by vice-skip Danielle Schiemann, second Dezaray Hawes, lead Paige Papley and coach Ted Appelman. The foursome defeated Team Kayla Skrlik 6-5, with a steal of two in the 10th end, to earn its first Scotties Tournament of Hearts berth in 2024.
The foursome tasted some success in its initial trip to nationals, finishing atop its pool at 7-1, defeating defending champion Team Kerri Einarson, Team Kaitlyn Lawes and Team Krista McCarville along the way.
After losing to Team Jennifer Jones in the first round of the championship, Team Sturmay then again beat Lawes to advance to the playoffs where it fell 6–4 to Manitoba’s Team Kate Cameron in the Page 3 vs. 4 game, finishing fourth.
Sturmay has enjoyed other successes along the way, winning the 2019 New Holland Canadian U21 Women’s title and finishing as a runner-up at Worlds. She also has two Canadian U SPORTS titles under her belt. Her team competed in the 2022 PointsBet Invitational and upset Team Chelsea Carey in the first round. Sturmay has also curled mixed doubles with her brother, Karsten.
Like Sturmay, Schmiemann is a product of the strong University of Alberta curling program and a former New Holland U21 Canadian champion from 2015. Along with Kelsey Rocque the team claimed the World Juniors title that season.
Scheimann was also twice a U SPORTS gold medallist with skip Kristen Streifel and Rocque and later won gold at the 2017 FISU World University Games with Rocque at the helm. Along with Rocque, Schmiemann also participated in the 2021 Canadian Curling Trials.
In 2024, Hawes was the only member of the team with previous Scotties experience, playing in the 2020 and 2021 nationals with former BC skip Corryn Brown. She placed second at the 2016 New Holland U21 Canadian championship with skip Sarah Daniels before joining Brown’s crew. She also previously competed in mixed doubles with three-time New Holland Canadian U21 champion Tyler Tardi.
Papley also comes out of the strong University of Alberta program and has donned Canada’s colours at the World Juniors (with Sturmay where they finished second) and FISU World University Games, but this will be her second trip to the Scotties.
Team Saskatchewan
Nancy Martin outlasted Jolene Campbell 9-7 in a battle of veterans in the final of the Saskatchewan women’s provincial curling championship.
Deuces in the eighth and 10th ends were pivotal for Martin and her Saskatoon Nutana Curling Club teammates of third Chaelynn Stewart, second Kadriana Lott and vice-skip/lead Deanna Doig. Campbell had fought back to tie the game with a three-ender in the ninth.
Martin, who has been competing for 20 years, earns just her second trip to the Scotties, the first came with Sherry Anderson in 2021 where the team finished 6-6. Martin was a provincial runner-up in 2023 and 2024.
Stewart will make her second trip to the Scotties as she was also a member of that 2021 team while Lott earns her very first appearance at the national women’s championship. Lott has had previous national-level success in mixed doubles with husband Colton Lott, winning the 2024 Canadian Mixed Doubles crown.
The two represented Canada at the 2024 World Mixed Doubles Championship where they lost out in the qualification round in an extra end to Estonia. The pair won the Manitoba crown in 2018 before losing the Canadian final to Laura Crocker and Kirk Muyres.
Doig makes her second trip to the Scotties, the first was back in 2017 with skip Penny Barker. The team struggled at nationals with a 1-10 record.
Colleen Ackerman is the team alternate and Sherry Anderson will act as coach.
Team New Brunswick
It took an extra end, but Melissa Adams will represent New Brunswick for a second-straight year.
Adams and her Capital Winter Club rink in Fredericton – consisting of vice-skip Jaclyn Crandall, second Kayla Russell and lead Kendra Lister – defeated Justine Comeau’s 8-6 to earn the provincial berth to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Comeau had tied the game with a steal in the 10th end.
It will be Adams’ sixth trip to the women’s national event, having first appeared as an alternate for Andrea Kelly in 2009. She was a skip in the pre-qualifying event in 2017, played vice-skip for Sylvie Quillian in 2018 and returned to skip in the Scotties in 2021, where she finished 3-5. In 2017, Adams was 3-0 in pre-qualifying before losing the final to Kerry Galusha of the northwest Territories, making 2017 an unofficial trip to the Scotties.
Last year, Adams finished 2-6 at the Scotties.
Crandall was also vice-skip for Adams in 2024 and 2021 and Lister also appeared as lead for that team and in 2018 for Quillian and also threw first stones for Adams in 2024. Lister was the team’s alternate at last year’s Scotties and replaces Molli Ward, who will be this year’s alternate. This is Lister’s fourth trip to nationals.
Molli Ward is the team alternate and Alex Robichaud is the coach.
Tickets for the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts can be purchased at https://www.curling.ca/2025scotties/tickets/
