CurlingZone: Fleury Leads Field as Manitoba Scotties Get Underway

East St. Paul's Team Fleury (Picture: Anil Mungal, Grand Slam of Curling) enters this year's Manitoba Scotties as the event's number one seed.

By: Dylan Chenier

This week, twelve of the best women's curling rinks in Manitoba descend on the small town of Carberry for the 2022 provincial Scotties Tournmanet of Hearts. The Carberry Plains Recreation Centre will be buzzing all week long as the rinks vie for the chance to represent their province at the national championships early next year.

Leading the field into this year's championships is team Tracy Fleury, the 2019 provincial winners. Team Fleury holds the number one seed entering this week's tournament, they hope to remain on top come Sunday's championship final.

So far this year, Fleury's rink, with third Selena Njegovan, second Liz Fyfe, and lead Kirstin MacCuish, has had one of the most successful seasons in women's curling. In six events played thus far, Team Fleury has made the finals in all but one of them, with their biggest victory coming at the 2021 GSOC Masters in Oakville.

During the Olympic Trials in November, Team Fleury put together a dominant performance, sailing through the round-robin with an 8-0 record. Fleury would eventually fall to Jennifer Jones 5-6 in the championship final, losing out on the opportunity to represent Canada at the Winter Olympics.

This week's competition in Carberry marks Team Fleury's first event since that heartbreaking finals loss, the team now has their sights firmly set on winning another provincial title. Fleury's rink opens the event on Wednesday morning against Shae Bevan.

Due to the Winter Olympics, as well as the results of last year's national Scotties, several big names in Manitoba women's curling will be absent from this year's provincials.

At last year's national championship in Calgary, Team Kerri Einarson picked up their second-consecutive Scotties title, earning the Gimli rink the right to wear the maple leaf as Team Canada once again in 2022.

As Canada's women's Olympic Team in Beijing, Team Jones will not compete as part of this year's national championships, instead, the rink will take the time to prepare for the Games.

Without Einarson and Jones, who together have won six of the last ten Manitoba titles, the week's Scotties in Carberry could be a wide-open affair, with a number of rinks having a legitimate shot at the title.

2020 World Junior champions Team Zacharias enter the event as the second seed. The team, with skip Mackenzie Zacharias, third Karlee Burgess, second Emily Zacharias, and lead Lauren Lenentine, earned the right to compete in last year's national championships as one of three Wild Card entries. This week the team will be eager to earn a second trip to nationals, this time as Team Manitoba.

At the 2021 national Scotties, Team Zacharias went 3-5 in the round-robin and failed to advance to the championship round.

Another 2021 Scotties Wild Card entire looking for their first provincial title is Team Beth Peterson. The foursome, with third Jenna Loder, second Katherine Doerksen, and lead Melissa Gordon, went 5-3 through the round-robin and advanced to the championship pool, where they finished the event with a 7-5 record, good enough for fifth-place.

At this year's provincial championship, Team Peterson enters as the third seed.

While the event is filled with a number of bright young female teams, there are some familiar faces in Manitoba curling filling out the roster.

Winnipeg's Darcy Robertson is back, looking for her third provincial title. Robertson enters the competition with third Laura Burtnyk, second Gaetanne Gauthier, and lead Krysten Karwacki. Team Robertson has played in seven events so far this season. their best result was a quarterfinal appearance at last month's DEKALB SuperSpiel.

This year's Manitoba Scotties features a twelve-team round robin, with the rinks split into two different groups. The Asham Black Group features Team Fleury, alongside Kristy Watling, Kaitlyn Jones, Jennifer Clark-Rouire, Meghan Walter, and Shae Bevan.

In the Asham Express Red Group are teams Zacharias, Peterson, and Robertson, as well as Krysty McDonald, Alyssa Calvert, and Terry Ursel.

Each team will play all other members of their group, with the top three rinks in each group advancing to the championship pool where they will face the top three squads from the opposite group. No tiebreakers will be used after the round-robin, any ties will be resolved using head-to-head results the last shot draw to the button scores. There will be one tiebreaker draw only, if needed, after the championship round.

At the conclusion of the championship round, the number one ranked team will advance directly to Sunday afternoon's finals, with the second and third-placed teams competing in a semi-final.

After the 2021 Manitoba Scotties were cancelled due to the pandemic, this year's tournament marks the first time the event has been held since early 2020. Due to the timing of this year's national Scotties Tournmanet of Hearts, CurlManitoiba opted to hold their provincial championships earlier in the season.

The winning rink will become Team Manitoba at the 2022 Scotties Tournmanet of Hearts in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

The 2022 Manitoba Scotties Tournmanet of Hearts presented by Bayer, runs December 14 to 19 at the Carberry Plains Recreation Centre. CurlManitoba will provide a live stream of one game per draw (except for evening draws) throughout the round-robin and championship pool, on their YouTube Page. Sportsnet has coverage of Sunday's semi-finals and championship finals. The finals are set for Sunday at 4:00 PM CT.

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