News Champions Cup

SHERWOOD PARK, Alta. — When Krista McCarville won the Colonial Square Ladies Classic in November, she didn’t realize at the time it would be her ticket back into the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling series.

The Thunder Bay, Ont., skip has had a remarkable comeback season following a hiatus from competitive curling winning four events on tour and also guided Northern Ontario to a silver medal at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

It was thanks to Rick Lang, father of lead Sarah Potts and a national coach for Team Canada, who told them they would have a chance, based on the Colonial Square’s strength of field, to play in the Humpty’s Champions Cup, which features all of the top tour event winners from the season in one final showdown.

“Actually at the time we didn’t (know) but later on, I think a few weeks later, we thought, ‘I wonder if that’s going to qualify us?’” McCarville admitted. “Just having Rick Lang as a father on the team who’s obviously part of the curling association, he knew that we’d have a chance in it. Just leading up we were really excited.”

McCarville last played in the series at the 2012 Masters and her team — which also features third Kendra Lilly and second Ashley Sippala — has been hard at work getting ready for the event.

“We’ve been practising hard after the Scotties, just playing almost every day doing whatever we can,” she said. “We haven’t really had too many games leading up but we’ve been practising hard.”

Overall, McCarville said it’s been a really good year with the Humpty’s Champions Cup being the accumulation of their work.

“We formed a team last March and wanted to give it a go,” McCarville said. “We haven’t done too many of the larger bonspiels but we did what we could do and we were very successful with it leading to the Scotties. To be here is just the icing on the cake.”

McCarville added that she couldn’t have asked for anything more with an encore expected for next season.

“We had lots of fun doing it, which I think is really important,” she said. “We’ll keep it going again for next year.”

The Humpty’s Champions Cup starts Tuesday night at the Sherwood Park Arena Sports Centre with Team McCarville’s first game against Team Val Sweeting during Draw 4 Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. MT.

NOTES: The Humpty’s Champions Cup is the seventh and final event of the 2015-16 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season. … The event is the second of two new tournaments added to the schedule this year along with the Tour Challenge, which kicked off the season in September. … Teams had to win an event over the course of the season in order to qualify for the Humpty’s Champions Cup. … The Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling returns for the 2016-17 season starting with the Masters, Oct. 25-30, in Okotoks, Alta.