The 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts is set to commence on Friday from Markin McPhail Centre in Calgary, Alberta. There will be 18 teams competing with the winner representing Canada at the 2024 Women’s World Curling Championship in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Team Canada is represented by Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Manitoba. Einarson has won the last four Scotties. They have been in 2020 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, in 2021 in Calgary, Alberta, in 2022 in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and in 2023 in Kamloops, British Columbia. There are four wildcard teams this year as Nunavut is not represented. They are Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones and Ontario’s Rachel Homan, who were selected at the end of last year’s curling season, along with Manitoba’s Kate Cameron and British Columbia’s Corryn Brown, who were chosen this year. Jones has won six Scotties as a skip (2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2018), won the 2008 and 2018 Women’s World Curling Championship, and the gold medal at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. Homan has won three Scotties (2013, 2014 and 2017) and the 2017 Women’s World Curling Championship.
There is no doubt that the favourites are Einarson, Homan and Jones. Other skips participating include Selena Sturmay of Edmonton (representing Alberta), Clancy Grandy of Vancouver (representing British Columbia), Kaitlyn Lawes of Winnipeg (representing Manitoba), Melissa Adams of Fredericton (representing New Brunswick), Stacie Curtis of St. John’s (representing Newfoundland and Labrador), Krista McCarville of Thunder Bay (representing Northern Ontario), Heather Smith of Halifax (representing Nova Scotia), Danielle Inglis of Ottawa (representing Ontario), Jane DiCarlo of Crapaud (representing Prince Edward Island), Laurie St-Georges of Laval (representing Quebec), Skylar Ackerman of Saskatoon (representing Saskatchewan), and Bayly Scoffin of Whitehorse (representing Yukon), and Kerry Galusha of Yellowknife (representing the Northwest Territories).