P.E.I. women taking simple strategy to nationals
JASON SIMMONDS
The Journal Pioneer
CHARLOTTETOWN – Coach Brenda MacMillan has a simple strategy for the P.E.I. women’s entry at the 2010 M&M Meat Shops Canadian junior curling championships.
“The No. 1 goal is we want to go and have fun, but we also want to try and do well,” said MacMillan. “If we finish in the top half we will be happy.
“If it’s more than that, it will be icing on the cake for us.”
Skip Sarah Fullerton, 18, third stone Michelle McQuaid, 18, second stone Sara MacRae, 18, and lead Whitney Young, 19, of the Cornwall Curling Club will be competing in their first national junior championship in Sorel-Tracy, Que.
The rink earned P.E.I.’s berth by defeating the Anita Casey rink from the Charlottetown Curling Club rink 9-2 in the provincial final in O’Leary.
“The girls right now are pretty excited,” said MacMillan.
Familiarity is not an issue with the Fullerton foursome. MacMillan, who started coaching the rink last season, added Fullerton, McQuaid and McRae have curled together for approximately nine years.
The Fullerton rink, which also represented P.E.I. at the 2005 Canada Winter Games, won last year’s Atlantic 18-and-under championship in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Thus, this rink does have some big-game experience and enters the nationals enjoying a very successful year.
“We’ve really done well so far this season on the cashspiel circuit,” noted MacMillan.
They won in Summerside, Cornwall and finished second in Sackville, N.B. MacMillan said the rink curled well in the Charlottetown Super League as well.
“The biggest turning point for this team was Halloween weekend,” she said. “We went to Ottawa to the big OVCA Superspiel, a major junior cashspiel up there and there’s teams from the States and sometimes teams from Europe come over.”
Overall, the rink went 1-4.
“They felt it gave them the edge to work harder to win the provincial (championship),” said MacMillan.
As is the key in any round-robin format, MacMillan agrees a good start is important.
“We’d like to win our first couple of games and get us rolling,” she said. “But I told the girls to take it one rock and one end at a time.
“Don’t look at it that after 10 ends I want to be the winner. If something happens that the rock doesn’t do what you want it to do, go on to the next one. Don’t dwell on it.”