That’s because Barker and her rink of third Christie Gamble, second Jenna Enge and lead Danielle Sicinski got all of that qualifying business out of the way quite a while ago.
And how did they do it? Simply by winning. A lot.
The local foursome finished on top of the Sask Women’s Curling Tour standings after the final event of the pre-Scotties season in Swift Current in early December, where they lost to Robyn Silvernagle in the tournament semifinal.
Even that top-four showing could be looked at as disappointing given Barker’s earlier success -- they defeated Mandy Selzer in the championship final in Weyburn two weeks earlier and rolled undefeated through a powerhouse field to claim the Moose Jaw SWCT stop on the Nov. 5 weekend.
It all led to Barker finishing with 70.977 points on the Sask team ranking system, with Regina’s Michelle Englot (58.62), Biggar’s Brett Barber (53.15) and Saskatoon’s Jessica Mitchell (48.96) landing the other spots.
“Going into the season, that’s kind of a mini-goal we set, pre-qualifying for provincials,” Barker said. “There’s a lot of strong teams in the province, so it’s nice to get that out of your schedule… We had a really strong fall and played fairly consistently, so that’s put us in a good position. Now we can just focus on practicing and little tweaks and getting ready for provincials as opposed to having to play an important event before Christmas.”
Barker’s run of success in the late fall came on the heels of a solid showing at the Olympic Pre-Trials in Liverpool, N.S., where they ended up a single win away from reaching the playoff round. Since their return to the province, they’ve done little else but win.
“We had a really good week in Liverpool, a couple things here and there and maybe we’d have found ourselves in the playoffs and given ourselves a shot at the Trials,” Barker said. “But we knew if that didn’t go our way, the next one was getting back to the national Scotties and we were able to refocus and keep going.”
Of course, with women’s curing in Saskatchewan being what it is, all that pre-Scotties success is little more than a preview of what they’ll need to put together going forward.
“It’s any given day,” said Barker, who won the Viterra Scotties in 2017. “You have to be on your game at all times because teams are so strong. It helps playing well going in, and I think that’s what we did, but there are still things like capitalizing on chances because you don’t get a whole lot of misses from these top teams. So it’s focussing on ourselves, making our shots and taking advantage of whenever someone leaves the door open for us.”
For now, though, it’s enjoying the holidays, hitting the ice for a few practices and all-in-all mentally preparing for provincials beginning Jan. 5 in Assiniboia.
“With the Olympic year, things are early with provincials right after the New Year, so we’ll get some family time over Christmas and after that, just gear up and get ready for Assiniboia.”
Barker isn’t the only team with local connections to pre-qualify for the Scotties.
Former Moose Jaw competitor and two-time Viterra Scotties champion Amber Holland, who now plays out of Kronau, was the second-highest qualifier through the Canadian Team Ranking System, which ranks players who take part in national-level events.
She’ll be joined by Regina Highland’s Chelsea Carey, Silvernagle and Saskatoon’s Sherry Anderson, who just last week won her fourth-straight Canadian senior championship.
