ESTEVAN - A junior curling team that competed out of the Estevan Curling Club impressed during what was a challenging season.
Estevan Curling Club manager Pauline Ziehl-Grimsrud, who is also their coach, said it started two years ago when three Fradette sisters – Heidi, Amy and Andie, all from Lake Alma – decided to participate in the club’s youth programming.
“It so happened that we had some other girls that were in our club already that were looking to do more competitive curling, and wanted to put in more time and do more than what our program was offering,” said Ziehl-Grimsrud.
She started working with them on Tuesday nights, and it developed into Heidi and Amy being joined by Kristen Carlson and Melina Stead of Estevan coming together as a team. They came together every Tuesday at 6 p.m. to practise for an hour.
“These girls really wanted to work hard and develop their curling skills,” said Ziehl-Grimsrud.
They also played doubles on Tuesday nights in the second half of the season, and they played in the open league on Thursday nights.
“Just given the circumstances of this quasi-COVID season we had, they played a couple of bonspiels here in Estevan. They also were in Lampman and they did a fun day at Lake Alma,” said Ziehl-Grimsrud.
They decided they wanted to take a shot at the Saskatchewan Winter Games as the Zone 1 representative. They were ready to start playing the qualifier at the Power Dodge Curling Centre in Estevan in January when they found out the Winter Games were postponed to 2023.
“It was a great disappointment for the girls, because they were really focusing on doing that,” said Ziehl-Grimsrud.
The kids who would have aged out from Winter Games eligibility this year will get another chance next year, so the Fradette, Carlson and Stead team will get to try again. Ziehl-Grimsrud expects to see three or four southeast teams take a shot at competing in the Games.
“We’re probably one of the areas with the strongest curling. You just have to look at the high school playdowns. Wawota, Carnduff and one of the Lampman teams got gold, bronze or finished fourth at the high school provincials,” said Ziehl-Grimsrud.
The rink wasn’t just strong against their age group. They competed in the Thursday night adult league at the curling club, and they went 5-0 at the curling club’s fun spiel in March.
“They worked really hard and have the potential to be a really strong team.”
