THUNDER BAY, Ont. — Krista McCarville will be curling tomorrow, just not on the sheet of ice she was hoping to.
As the Scotties Tournament of Hearts moves into the playoff round on Friday at McCarville’s home club, Fort William Gardens, the skip will be back to her full-time job and taking her Grade 6 class to the Atikokan Curling Club for a day of fun curling, since it’s an elective day for her students in the curriculum.
“I’m going back to work tomorrow,” said McCarville, who’s a teacher, just minutes after her Team Northern Ontario won their fourth straight game at their home Scotties to move to 4-4, two wins shy of what they needed to make the playoffs. “I just thought there’s no point sitting around the hotel room pouting.”
While the team wasn’t exactly in good spirits after their early exit from the national championship, the crowd support certainly helped lift them up a bit. McCarville and two of her long-time teammates, Sarah Potts and Ashley Sippala, are from right here in Thunder Bay, while Kendra Lilly is from Sudbury and Andrea Kelly is the import from New Brunswick. And as they left the ice Thursday afternoon for the last time during this home bonspiel in their green and yellow Northern Ontario uniforms, the team was treated to a whole lot of cheers and claps and moose calls and cow bells and even a partial standing ovation.
But it wasn’t the week McCarville and her teammates dreamt of, after getting out to an 0-4 start that they couldn’t recover from, even though they won the rest of the way, their finale a 9-2 drubbing of New Brunswick in eight ends. The 42-year-old McCarville and her Northern Ontario rink are perennial playoff contenders — she’s a three-time medallist at this national tournament, with silver medal finishes at the Scotties in both 2016 and 2022. Two years ago in Kamloops, Team McCarville won bronze.
One of Northern Ontario’s wins this week was a convincing one, 10-4, over Kayla Skrlik and Team Alberta. Skrlik’s team is among the top three in the pool who will advance to playoffs, along with Team B.C. and Team Canada.
“I mean, when you start oh and four, you’re just hoping to go .500 in the tournament,” McCarville said of this disappointing home Scotties. “We played a lot better the last four games, and I think that’s the team that we are is the team that we played, just to finish off the tournament. And so that does feel a lot better. I mean, you still don’t feel 100 per cent, but finishing it off strong is a good thing.”
“It was bittersweet,” added Potts. “It was nice to play well, but then it’s also like, why couldn’t we have done that a little bit earlier? But we had a tough start. The teams we played were really strong, and we’re just thankful the crowd hung in there with us. They didn’t start booing us. They were still cheering right ‘til the end, so that helped.”
Back in 2022, Thunder Bay hosted the Scotties, and until the playoffs, teams played in an empty building. It wasn’t until playoffs began that some fans were allowed in to fill a few sections, and were treated to McCarville’s Team Northern Ontario making a run to the final.
They had the results that time, but not the full fan support. This time, they got the fan support without the results. “The fans cheering us on the whole way this time was definitely a bonus, for sure,” McCarville said, with a smile.
The team plans to have a fun night together Thursday while they’re all still together, since Kelly flies home Friday. McCarville’s daughter, Bella, is away curling at the U18 Canadian championships in Saskatoon, but McCarville plans to bring her son out on the weekend to see how their hometown Scotties finishes up.
Team Canada, the defending champions and world No. 1 skipped by Rachel Homan, earned yet another victory Thursday to move to 8-0, and they’re the only undefeated team in the field.
It’s Homan’s face along with McCarville’s that you’ll see in giant advertisements at the airport in Thunder Bay, and on restaurant tables and in hotels, promoting this Scotties with motivational messages like “See Champions Rise.”
But after opening they way they did, Team Northern Ontario’s chances at the playoffs were slim, barring an absolute miracle, and her team was officially out as of Wednesday night.
While Pool A is decided, Pool B will be set later Thursday, with four teams at five wins — Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson, Ontario’s Danielle Inglis, Nova Scotia’s Christina Black and Quebec’s Laurie St-Georges, while Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes and Manitoba’s Kate Cameron have four wins apiece.
When the playoffs open on Friday at 1 pm ET, McCarville will be back with her students, and won’t have to take that extra day of unpaid leave.
“I thought, you know what would be a fun day? Let’s take the kids curling,” she said. “Why would I sit around doing nothing when I can go and be with students that I love?”
And she’ll still be playing the sport she loves, even if things didn’t go McCarville’s way this week.