Photo Courtesy: Canadian Press

By Ethan Ready, with files from Curling Canada

Curling Rocks

World Women’s Curling Championship starts Saturday in Prince George

Mar 16, 2022 | 10:41 AM

PRINCE GEORGE – Two years later than they had hoped, Kerri Einarson and her Canadian championship team from Gimli, Man., will wear the Maple Leaf in Prince George, B.C.

Einarson, vice-skip Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard, lead Briane Meilleur, alternate Krysten Karwacki, team coach Reid Carruthers and national coach Elaine Dagg-Jackson will be the home team when the 2022 BKT Tires & OK Tire World Women’s Curling Championship, gets underway on Saturday at the CN Centre.

Team Canada will be in action twice on opening day in Prince George — at 2 p.m. (all times Pacific) against Italy, skipped by Olympic mixed doubles gold-medallist Stefania Constantini, and at 7 p.m. against Norway’s Kristin Skaslien.

Two years ago, Team Einarson was coming off its first victory at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and arrived in Prince George ready to represent Canada for the first time, only to see those ambitions shattered as the 2020 World Women’s Championship was cancelled just 48 hours before it was to begin as the COVID-19 pandemic was in its early stages.

This year, Team Einarson heads to Prince George having won a third successive Scotties title. Last year in the bubble in Calgary, Team Einarson made the playoffs at the 2021 LGT World Women’s Championship and finished in a tie for fifth place.

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Thirteen teams will be competing in Prince George, including the reigning world champions from Switzerland skipped by Silvana Tirinzoni, as well as the perennial Swedish powerhouse team skipped by Anna Hasselborg. Those teams matched up in the bronze-medal game at the Winter Olympics last month in Beijing, with the Swedes prevailing 9-7 to finish on the podium.

Denmark (skipped by Madeleine Dupont) and South Korea (skipped by EunJung Kim) also competed at the Winter Olympics and will have the same lineups in Prince George.

At the other end of the experience spectrum, Turkey, skipped by Dilsat Yildiz, will make its debut at the World Women’s Championship.

Also competing at the Women’s Championship will be the Czech Republic’s Alžběta Baudyšová, Germany’s Daniela Jentsch, Japan’s Ikue Kitazawa, Scotland’s Rebecca Morrison and Cory Christensen of the United States.

Team Canada will be seeking its first podium finish since Team Jennifer Jones claimed the gold medal with a perfect 14-0 record in 2018 at North Bay, Ont.

It’s the 17th time that Canada has hosted the World Women’s Championship since it began in 1979 in Perth, Scotland, and the first time it’s happened in Prince George.

Canada has won a leading 17 gold medals at the World Women’s since 1979, followed by Switzerland and Sweden with eight apiece. Switzerland has won six of the past nine world women’s championships.

Round-robin play will run through to Friday, March 25, with the top six teams making the playoffs; no tiebreakers will be played, so ties for playoff spots will be broken based on head-to-head results, and if that doesn’t resolve the tie, then the pre-game Last-Shot Draw distances will be used to break ties.

The top two teams from round-robin play will be seeded directly into the semifinals on March 26 at 7 p.m., while third will play sixth and fourth will play fifth in the qualifying-round games on March 26 at 1 p.m.

The winners of the qualifying-round games will advance to the semifinals. The semifinal winners will play for gold on March 27 at 4 p.m., with the semifinal losers battling for bronze on March 27 at 11 a.m.