Val Sweeting and her Edmonton-based team have been in top form since November and could ride that momentum to their first career national championship at the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, starting Saturday in Moose Jaw, Sask.
It’s been a remarkable run for Sweeting since finishing runner-up to Rachel Homan in the Scotties final a year ago. Sweeting lost vice-skip Joanne Courtney, who headed east to Ottawa to join Team Homan. It’s not easy replacing a key teammate like Courtney but they were able to get seven-time New Brunswick champ Andrea Crawford to come onboard. However, the union was short-lived and the rink was dealt another blow when Crawford left the team on the eve of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling’s Masters tournament just two months into the season in late October.
Despite the roster changeup, the “tripod” of Sweeting, second Dana Ferguson and lead Rachelle Brown — with spare Cathy Overton-Clapham — persevered through the Masters and something started to click. Sweeting slid into the playoffs edging Homan during the semis and Sochi Olympics silver medallist Margaretha Sigfridsson in the final to win her first career Grand Slam championship.
Veteran curler Lori Olson-Johns became their regular third and Team Sweeting continued to gel, defeating Homan again in the Canada Cup final in December en route to another title. The new lineup was also on a roll at the Canadian Open Grand Slam with a 4-0 record until they fell to eventual winner Eve Muirhead in the semifinals.
Team Sweeting charged through quite possibly the strongest provincial field during the Alberta Scotties in January, posting a perfect 5-0 record to successfully defend their title with wins over the likes of two-time Canadian champion Heather Nedohin and 2014 national Scotties bronze medallist Chelsea Carey.
Overall, Sweeting ranks second only to reigning Olympic champion Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg on the World Curling Tour’s year-to-date order of merit and money lists. Her team’s record on the season is 45 wins, 14 losses (not far off from Jones’s 48-13 record) but when you break it down since Olson-Johns joined in November it’s an even more impressive 19-4.
Jones still has the golden touch as she ran the table through Manitoba to win her record seventh provincial title while Homan has been waiting in the wings with the Team Canada auto-berth and has a chance to become the youngest skip ever to win three consecutive Scotties championships. It could just as easily come down to the two of them in the final as they pose the biggest threat, but this is shaping up to be Sweeting’s time to win it all.