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ST. CATHARINES, Ont. — Heather Nedohin didn’t expect she’d be playing in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts this season.

The two-time Canadian champion stepped back from competitive curling two years ago to spend more time with her family and also focus on her career as the manager of the Sherwood Park Curling Club. It was only a couple days before the start of Alberta’s provincial playdowns when Nedohin received the call from skip Shannon Kleibrink, who was nursing an injured back and looking for someone to help fill in.

Nedohin played a couple games during the preliminary round assisting the team as they rolled right through playdowns and into the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. With Kleibrink still playing through pain, Nedohin has come off of the bench on several occasions to call the game and getting the chance to compete in another national women’s curling tournament was an opportunity she didn’t think she’d get again.

“I knew Shannon needed to be leading the front,” Nedohin said. “I was thankful that we were able to alternate games going back and forth.”

Nedohin isn’t the only former Scotties Tournament of Hearts champion behind the boards this week. Amber Holland, the 2011 Canadian winner, is serving as the alternate for the rookie Saskatchewan squad skipped by Penny Barker.

Holland also didn’t believe she’d make it to St. Catharines when Barker asked her in the fall to help out for a couple playdown events.

“I don’t think you ever have that expectation especially when you’re not really part of the team,” Holland said. “I got to play with them a little bit, but I wasn’t part of the team all year. At provincials I was there, I watched all week. Getting to see them at provincials, the momentum they had and the breaks that they had to get there it was neat to watch.”

Meanwhile, Manitoba’s Krysten Karwacki planned to take a break from competitive curling this season and focus on studying creative communications at Red River College. As it turned out, it’s been a career year for Karwacki as she ended up playing in her first-ever Scotties Tournament of Hearts as the alternate for Michelle Englot’s team.

“My dad actually said it’s funny the year I decided to take off for school and I actually get to go to the Scotties,” Karwacki said. “If I was playing I wouldn’t be here, probably, because these girls obviously won. It’s kind of funny but I’m just taking in the experience as much as I can.”

Karwacki has spared for the team during a couple of tournaments this season and was with them for provincial playdowns when Englot, a seven-time Saskatchewan champion, captured her first crown in Manitoba.

“Manitoba is a really hard province to get out of,” Karwacki said. “There are a lot of great teams and it’s very competitive. For the girls to ask me to be their fifth here it’s really been an honour so it’s been amazing.”

In Holland’s case, she made it clear from the start she wasn’t going to jump in and take over the squad if the going got tough as she believed the team earned their right to be there. Her role as the alternate has fallen somewhere in-between filling water bottles and scouting rocks to actually playing.

“Probably that middle ground where I have good experience on the ice and off of the ice. I’ll help you with the rocks and the ice and give you as much of the valuable information as I can there and I’ll still fill your water bottles and change your broom heads,” Holland said. “I told the girls before we left that I had no expectations of stepping on the ice unless I was needed for injury or illness.

“I’ve been here. I’ve done this. I’ve played in this event; they haven’t. They earned their right to be here and 100 percent they should be playing every game.”

Holland also wanted Barker’s team to soak up as much as they could on their own in their Scotties Tournament of Hearts debut without her setting the bar too high or putting too much pressure on them.

“What I hope to have done, besides maybe the record on the ice, was provide them with, okay did we take away as many distractions as we could? I made it so they knew what to expect when they got here,” Holland said. “At the same time even before we left I said it’s kind of a balance. There are a lot of neat things that I want you to just experience on your own that I don’t want to take away if this happens or that happens because being the first time you come to this event it’s neat to have those firsts. When somebody plants something in your mind of how it should be then it’s not quite the same.

“I think there’s a bit of a balance there of providing them enough information but not too much and not something that’s going to take away from the ooh and the ah of playing in the national.”

Karwacki has settled into the more traditional alternate role like Holland, however, she also jumped in to throw lead stones during the late stages of a couple games Wednesday when Manitoba was firmly in the lead.

“Honestly it was just awesome being asked to be here. … I was ready to kind of be here as their fifth and just making their jobs as easy as possible,” she said. “I’ve been watching a lot of rocks, taking care of snacks and switching heads on the brooms, so that’s kind of been my job and then being able to play is just a bonus.”

As for what the future holds for the role of an alternate, Nedohin said she’d actually like to see more women’s teams incorporate additional players into their regular rosters.

“I’d like to see the women’s teams look more that way and having six-person rosters: a front-end specialist and a back-end specialist,” Nedohin said. “Just with our careers and our work and everything this is tough.”