Anyone who took the curling ice at the Hillcrest Sports Centre back in the day and the Moose Jaw Curling Centre now would be hard-pressed to miss the long row of banners lining the far wall of the rink.
Teams from the Friendly City have won more than 30 provincial and national titles over the years, with each of those champions honoured with a banner showing off their names and the event they won -- with more than a few Tankard and Scotties titles represented.
On Monday night, two more rinks were added to that list during the Curl Moose Jaw Champions Dinner.
Penny Barker and her 2022 Viterra Scotties provincial champions were joined by Elaine Robson and her 2021 G-Mac’s AgTeam club championship foursome at the event, with both rinks receiving their second banner.
“It’s always a goal when you’re growing up curling and you see all the names on the banners, and it’s pretty cool if you can get your name up there.” said Robson, who was joined by third Candace Newkirk, second Malysha Johnstone and lead Sheri Logan in winning the club title in North Battleford in October 2021.
Robson dropped a single game at provincials that year, eventually defeating Robyn Despins 9-1 in the semifinal and following up with an 8-7 win over Despins to claim the title.
At nationals in Ottawa, Robson put together a 2-4 round robin record and just missed the playoffs.
The rink also won the 2019 championship, with a foursome skipped by Newkirk winning the title in 2015.
Robson plans to take another shot at the championship this March, with the natural goal being a return to nationals and another crack at Canadian gold.
“It’s a lot of fun when we go, we have a really good time, but you’re also representing your province and you want to win,” Robson said. “You never know how the games are going to go and even if our goal is to win, you never know. Anyone can beat anyone at any time at that event, so we just try and play our best and see what happens.”
It might seem like a surprise that Barker has only the one other championship banner to her name given her run of success throughout the years -- plenty of close calls until her breakthrough with the 2017 Viterra Scotties title.
“It took me a long time to get my first, I got second a lot in juniors,” Barker said with a laugh.
“It’s an honour, and we were kind of talking about that on the way here, how all through elementary school and high school, we wanted to be up on the wall at the Hillcrest. Now we’re down here, and to be able to go up there the first time was a huge honour in the first place, going up a second time is surreal.”
Barker and her rink of third Christie Gamble, second Jenna Enge and lead Danielle Sicinski lost twice to former Canadian Scotties champion Chelsea Carey in the lead-up to the provincial final in Assiniboia, but the third time was the charm, and a 7-5 win in the title game sent the Barker foursome to their second national Scotties.
There, Barker finished with a 4-4 record and missed the playoffs by a single win.
Barker has already qualified for the provincial Viterra Scotties thanks to a solid showing on the tournament circuit and remains confident her foursome will be able to put together another solid run Jan. 25-29 in Estevan.
“We had a really good fall, we played a lot of great games against some really good teams.” Barker said. “We’re where we need to be and we’ll do a little more practicing during the break and also take some time to just hang out with family, then we’ll be gearing up and getting ready for provincials.”
Be sure to follow www.curlsask.ca for updates on all the provincial championships in the new year.
