Curling Canada announced the full team list and draw for the 2021 tournament at the Markin McPhail Centre in Calgary Feb 19-28, with the former Moose Jaw standout landing as Sherry Anderson’s fifth for the tournament.
Anderson and her rink of third Nancy Martin, second Cahelynn Kitz and lead Breanne Knapp were named as Saskatchewan representatives for the national tournament by CurlSask a couple of weeks ago, with her selection based on Canadian Team Ranking System points after the provincial Scotties was cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic.
The choice seemed a natural one for Anderson, as Holland had played extremely well skipping her own rink this past season, finishing second in the provincial team standings and including a tournament win at the Moose Jaw Sask Women’s Curling Tour stop.
Then there’s Holland’s experience.
She’s twice represented Canada at World championships, the first coming in 1992 when she won the Pepsi Junior women’s national title and again in the women’s ranks when she claimed the Scotties Tournament of Hearts national championship in 2011.
Holland also has coaching and administrative experience, having worked with CurlSask as the technical director and later executive director for nearly two decades.
The national Scotties tournament field was expanded to 18 teams for this season after teams were unable to play and earn points on the CTRS, which decides the two rinks that playoff for the Wild Card spot.
That led to two additional teams being added, with Manitoba squads landing all three Wild Card berths: Tracy Fleury -- who lost the Wild Card game to Jennifer Jones at the 2020 Scotties at Mosaic Place last winter -- along with reigning women’s champion Mackenzie Zacharias and the third-ranked CRTS squad in Beth Peterson.
The rest of the field features a host of names familiar to those who followed the competition in Moose Jaw: Kerri Einarson (Team Canada), Rachel Homan (Ontario) Laura Walker (Alberta) and Kerry Galusha (Northwest Territories) all return in Pool A, with Nova Scotia’s Jill Brothers, Northern Ontario’s Krysta Burns, Yukon’s Laura Eby, Zacharias and Peterson rounding out the pool.
Anderson will play in Pool B, which also features Jennifer Jones (Manitoba), Corryn Brown (B.C.), Suzanne Birt (P.E.I.) and Lori Eddy (Nunavut) from the 2020 Scotties. Laurie St. Georges (Quebec), Melissa Adams (New Brunswick), Sarah Hill (Newfoundland) and Fleury will be the new faces.
Teams will play a full round robin in their pool, after which the top four teams from each will advance to the Championship pool, playing four games against the rinks from the opposite pool.
There will be no Page playoff this year: the top three teams from each pool advance to the playoffs, with first place moving straight to the title game and second and third playing a semifinal.
The championship final is Feb. 28, with all draws being broadcast on TSN.
