Although it may not feel like it due to the time of the year, many curling rinks will be starting their 2017-18 seasons this weekend.
One of those curlers taking to the ice will be Robyn Silvernagle’s North Battleford-based foursome will begin their campaign Friday night as they’ll face Balgonie’s Mandy Selzer at the Spider Performance Icebreaker Bonspiel in Winnipeg.
“Normally we’re practicing at the end of the summer so this will be the earliest any of us have curled to start a season,” Silvernagle said.
“We’ve gone to Nipawin a couple of times to practice during a curling camp they had up there but we tend to take the summer off from the ice as we want to be raring to go at this time of the year.”
Last season’s provincial runner-ups will have a slightly different lineup for this season as second Cristina Goertzen stepped away from the rink in February.
Replacing Goertzen is Jolene Campbell, who skipped Saskatchewan to a 6-5 record at the 2016 Scotties Tournament of Hearts and was the third for the Saskatchewan team that won the 2015 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship.
“It actually came together fairly quickly,” Silvernagle said. “Danya [Demers] had curled with Jolene a couple of years ago and they remained good friends, so they were still in contact with one another.
“When we found out that Cristina was going to be moving on, Jolene was the first person we had in mind to come and join us.”
Campbell will be the third on the Silvernagle rink this season, with Demers moving down to the second position and Kara Thevenot staying at lead.
“Jolene has a ton of experience from the mixed nationals and the Scotties, so to have her as part of our team is huge for us,” Silvernagle said.
“She has that knowledge of how to handle yourself in different situations that come up, even ones that you can’t predict.”
The entire team won’t be together for their opening spiel in Winnipeg, as Thevenot will be competing at a provincial baseball championship.
“We’ll have Callan Hamon, who played with Jolene at the Scotties in 2016, joining us for the weekend,” Silvernagle said.
“This weekend will be a great opportunity for Jolene and I to see how we operate together and go through a round-robin format in a bonspiel to shake off the rust a bit before the season gets going.”
Their other three round-robin games at the Icebreaker will see them play a trio of Winnipeg rinks that are skipped by Kerri Einarson, Brianne Meilleur and Rhonda Varnes respectively.
Following Saturday’s round-robin games, the top three teams in each six-team pool will advance to the Sunday’s playoffs.
The event in Winnipeg will serve as a tune-up for the Silvernagle rink’s first full event together.
That will take place in Regina from Sept. 5-10 as they’ll take part in the Grand Slam of Curling’s Tour Challenge Tier II event.
“That will be our first ever Slam so that will be a whole new can of worms for us,” Silvernagle said. “Even though it’s a Tier II event, there’s still a lot of great teams that will be there and it’ll be a lot of fun to play against them.
“Not only do you have a chance to compete for a spot at a Grand Slam event later in the season, but it will be a good opportunity for us to earn some points towards getting a spot in the provincials and to play on arena ice before the provincials.”
Silvernagle will be in a diverse pool during round-robin play at the Tour Challenge, as she will face Russia’s Anna Sidorova, Switzerland’s Binia Feltscher, Scotland’s Hannah Fleming and Regina’s Chantelle Eberle.
“I think we’ve played Chantelle once at the provincials and we played Anna in North Battleford in a fun game back in January after they got knocked out of the Canadian Open,” Silvernagle said.
After the Tour Challenge, the Silvernagle rink will compete at the Colonial Square Classic in Saskatoon from Sept. 22 to 25 and the Prestige Hotel Curling Classic in Vernon, B.C. the following weekend.
Their next event will be the Canad Inns Classic in Portage La Prairie, Man. from Oct. 20-23.
They will then go to the Red Deer Curling Classic in Alberta from Nov. 17-20 before traveling to Lloydminster the next week for the Boundary Ford Curling Classic in their final World Curling Tour event before the provincial playdowns in Melfort from Jan. 2-7, 2018.
The winner of the provincials will represent Saskatchewan at the 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Penticton, B.C. from Jan. 27-Feb. 4.
“The schedule worked out really well for us spacing wise,” Silvernagle said. “We coordinate our weekends so that we don’t curl too many bonspiels in a row.
“We’ve always wanted to curl at the bonspiel in Vernon as we’ve heard a lot of good things about it. There’s a lot of events we would like to do, such as the one in Edmonton in September, but then we’d be curling four weekends in a row and that gets a little too crazy.”
