THUNDER BAY – Three years ago, Krista McCarville got a taste for what a Scotties Tournament of Hearts was like in Thunder Bay.
With 400 or 500 fans cheering her on at Fort William Gardens, the maximum allowed under COVID-19 regulations at the time, it was spine-tingling, to say the least, as the veteran skip made it to her second championship game, setting for a second silver in six years.
This time around, there are no restrictions, and the atmosphere is going to be electric, McCarville said.
“I can’t wait,” she said. “It’s going to be so exhilarating, the energy that I’m going to feel … just to know that Thunder Bay is on our side is a pretty neat feeling.”
It’s a chance to live out her curling dream.
“We got a little blip of it a few years ago, but that little blip was pretty amazing. Just to think about the crowd at the Gardens cheering. I’ve heard that it’s going to be full. That’s pretty exciting,” said McCarville, who last year added the experience of Andrea Kelly at third to her team of Sarah Potts, Ashley Sippala and Sudbury’s Kendra Lilly.
Kelly, who will be making her 13th trip to the Scotties, one more than McCarville, four more than Sippala and five more than Potts and Lilly, could be the difference-maker this time around. Combined, that’s 50 Scotties appearances.
The quintet missed the playoffs at last year’s Scotties, going 4-4 and losing out in a five-way tiebreaker, but McCarville thinks this is their strongest team yet.
“This is our ninth year together. We joined with Andrea last year, we had our year last year to try to feel things out, get ready and learn who each other is, just to field a team,” McCarville said. “I feel like this year we’ve really gelled. We’ve done really well on the circuit, for the spiels we’ve gone to. We’ve qualified or been in the playoffs for every single one.
“And we’ve been practicing really hard. We’re out there five, six days a week, we communicate constantly. I feel like we’ve done everything we could possibly do.”
If effort pays off, Potts said the team is as prepared as it’s ever been heading into a Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
“I just think that we’re ready,” said Potts, whose father, former world champion Rick Lang, coaches the team.
Kelly is a big part of that equation, she added.
“I think she brings a lot of calmness and a lot of experience, having her play third. And Kendra’s been great at second. Having the five-man rotation has worked. I think that is the change that kind of makes us ready to win it,” she said.
McCarville said the key to success will be quickly picking up a feel for the ice at the Gardens. Arena ice is different than the ice at her home venue, the Fort William Curling Club.
“Usually, it curls quite a bit more. But the ice-makers here have been giving us different rocks. They curl more, so we’ve been practicing our releases and making sure we know how to throw it for the curly ice we’re expecting at the Scotties,” she said, adding they’ll take it one game at a time, not focusing on a particular opponent until it’s time to play them.
If McCarville is guilty of looking ahead at anything, it’s the end result. She wants that elusive championship – badly.
“We’re going in for gold. That’s what we want. That’s what we dream of. To do it in Thunder Bay would be an absolute dream come true, more than I think I could ever imagine,” McCarville said.
Team McCarville opens on Friday night against Saskatchewan.
