SUDBURY -- The women representing team Northern Ontario had to get creative during this lock down to in order to find ice before heading to the Women’s National Championships next month in Calgary.
“It actually wasn’t as much work as I thought it was going to be. It’s kind of one of those scenarios where it’s just the way it is. So, you can’t really stress about it,” said Gates.
“We’ve all been curling for so long that we’re hoping that the hours we’ve put in, in the past will hopefully carry us onto the tournament. But, just being able to slide here a little bit to keep ourselves loose and to keep the stretch going a little bit.”
Gates says this would not have been possible without some help.
“We actually had the ice maker from Idylwylde, he came out and helped me and our fifth Kira helped as well,” said Gates.
“I’m actually pretty happy with the outcome, because normally you’re able to pebble ice and here you can’t pebble it because it just disappears as soon as you put it on the ice so you’re basically sliding on a flat surface. We just put a flood down twice, put a hacks in the middle, built a wall behind the hacks to make sure that they didn’t move,” said Mike Assad, Idylwylde Golf & Country Club ice maker.
Team Northern Ontario will be competing against 17 other teams.
This will be Gates fourth time playing in the Scotties, but for her teammates this is tournament will be their first.
“For the rest of us who have never been, we’ve been to the Canadian juniors before and we’ve been to the university Canadian championship so we have experience at national events,” said Megan Smith, team northern Ontario vice.
“In respect to that, it will be similar but just the level of play will be likely higher at the Scotties because those teams are just so good. So we’re just trying to do what we can to be the best prepared that we can be.”
The team will be heading to Calgary on Feb. 17.
