It has been a busy season for Saskatoon’s Stefanie Lawton.
After taking a minor hiatus to raise her new baby boy, she’s back, ready to win it all at the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Moose Jaw at Mosaic Place.
“When we play well, we know we are capable of winning and winning it all,” Lawton said.
It’ll be the first time the team—lead Marliese Kasner, skip Lawton, second Sherri Singler and third Sherry Anderson—will wear green in their home province at the national Scotties.
“It’s going to be pretty awesome playing in our home crowd,” Lawton said.
The team plans to thrive off the sea of green at Mosaic Place, as history has shown they’ve done well when playing at home in Saskatoon, Anderson said.
But more expectations will be placed on them.
“There will be more pressure, if you let it affect you. I don’t think that’ll be the case, but you never know,” Anderson said. “I think we should embrace the home crowd and use it to our advantage as much as we can.”
But Anderson had some doubts the team would make it to the national curling event.
Everyone’s positions changed while Lawton was away, causing Anderson to question how well the team would function once Lawton returned in January.
“Are we going to be a rusty team?” Anderson recalled. “We all wanted it so badly to get to Moose Jaw to represent our province.”
As it turns out, the team gelled quickly, winning their second straight provincial title at the January 2015 Viterra Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Assiniboia.
“It was a really good week,” Singler said. “Marliese and Stef have had babies over the last four years, so we’re really in tune with what we need to do as a team to go on.”
Compared to her male colleagues, Anderson joked her team has a bit more to deal with off the ice.
“It’d be interesting to see a guy like Glenn Howard or Kevin Martin, who have done so well over the years, give birth and then three months later be breastfeeding every four hours—up through the night—and see how they perform after not curling up until their provincials.
“I think Stefanie did pretty darn good.”
Even though the team came out on top at provincials, they’re ready to play hard to dispel last year’s fourth place finish at the national Scotties in Montreal.
The top three teams—Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones, Alberta’s Val Sweeting and Team Canada’s Rachel Homan—will be resilient.
But according to Lawton, never take the other teams for granted.
“All the teams are going to be tough. We’ll just have to go out there and play well.”
As the tournament approaches, the team will work on reviving their usual playing positions.
“That really worked well in provincials and we will continue to do that,” Lawton said. “As a team, we’ll continue to keep growing as we go forward.”
It’s the first time the national Scotties will be in Moose Jaw, “arguably the largest single sporting event to ever cometo the city,” said Glenn Hagel, co-chair of the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
“This is a super exciting event for Moose Jaw. We are in the heartland of curling.”
Tickets for the national curling event can be purchased online at www.curling.ca/2015scotties-en/tickets.
