By now you know that Nampa’s Kayla and Ashton Skrlik are in Kamloops for the Scotties Tournament of Hearts representing Alberta with “The Rockies” on their backs along with their teammates Brittany Tran and Geri-Lynn Ramsay. If you didn’t know I think you have been living under a rock for the last month.
They are in Pool A which is a tough pool needing to play the 3x defending national champions Team Einarson and a strong team in Team Lawes. They have a big first game against Lawes to try and shake things up. Lawes is using a player (Laura Walker) that doesn’t normally play with them and hasn’t been playing much if any 4 person curling all year. The rest of the group will not be pushovers but are definitely very winnable.
All Games are broadcasted on TSN (May Not Be The Feature Game)
Here is Team Skrlik’s schedule (Times in MST):
Friday Feb 17 @ 7 pm vs WC1 (Lawes) – Loss 5-8
Saturday Feb 18 @ 7 pm vs SK (Silvernagle) – Loss 9-11 (EE)
Monday Feb 20 @ 9:30 am NU (MacPhail) – Win 9-4
Monday Feb 20 @ 7:30 pm QC (St-Georges) – Win 12-4
Tuesday Feb 21 @ 2:30 pm vs PEI (Birt) – Win 10-7
Wednesday Feb 22 @ 2:30 pm vs NS (Black) – Win 7-4
Thursday Feb 23 @ 9:30 am vs CA (Einarson) – Loss 8-9
Thursday Feb 23 @ 7:30 pm vs BC (Grandy) – Loss 6-8
Feb 24/25 Playoffs*
Feb 26 Semi-Final and Final*
* Needs to Qualify For
Only the top 3 teams will advance to the championship pool from their pool and after that the top 4 teams with the best combined record (your record goes with you) will be in the page playoffs.
Kayla and the team can compete with all of these teams and in my estimation can get at least 4 wins out of 8 but normally 5 is the magic number to at least have a tie breaker to get into the championship pool. Silvernagle and Black appear to be their biggest competition for the that 3rd spot in the group but PEI with Birt throwing last can surprise teams and St. Georges and Grandy will pose a task. If the team plays like they did in Wetaskiwin they can get to that champion pool where all bets are off.
– Everett
