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SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. — Krista McCarville couldn’t wait to get back onto the ice at the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling.

The reigning Northern Ontario Scotties champion is aiming to make the most of the opportunity with her invite to the Boost National this week at the Essar Centre.

McCarville is no stranger to the series, however, her squad wasn’t ranked high enough on the World Curling Tour’s Order of Merit to qualify. Her team was granted the sponsor’s exemption spot to add some regional “wild card” flavour to the Boost National.

“We’re looking forward to being on really good ice and playing against the top teams in the world is always lots of fun,” McCarville said. “We’ve played in the Soo before back at the Scotties in 2010 and we had great support so it’s always fun to play in your home province.”

“It’s awesome,” added third Kendra Lilly. “We love playing in any Slam but especially in Northern Ontario. We love the crowds and there’s a lot of friends and family coming to watch. It’s just such an awesome experience. We just want to do well with the spot and try to win a couple games.”

Lilly, from Sudbury, actually lives a fair bit of distance away from her teammates McCarville, second Ashley Sippala and lead Sarah Potts, who are all based in Thunder Bay. One may not realize just how enormous Northern Ontario actually is with over 1,000 km separating the two cities.

“They don’t realize how far away it is. It’s probably a 12-hour drive,” Lilly said. “It’s a very long way, so it’s funny to see. Even our provincials are in Nipigon so an hour-and-a-half north of Thunder Bay. In Ontario you could almost be in a different time zone even. It’s just such a big province that it’s crazy.”

Team McCarville has found a way to make it work though with Lilly joining the team at events or in Thunder Bay when they have a break.

“We see Kendra a few times a month and the times that we have a longer span in-between our spiels she usually comes up to Thunder Bay for a training weekend so we see each other quite a bit still,” McCarville said. “We practice on our own and we send her practices that we do and she does those with people in Sudbury.”

“I always fly so I spent a lot of times in airports but that’s okay,” Lilly added. “We have a lot of support from the team and our families and stuff being able to take time off. We don’t get to practice that much together so we try to make do of every game we have together because that’s really our practice time. It’s been working so far and I love the girls so I wouldn’t want to change anything.”

McCarville had an incredible comeback season on tour in 2015-16 after stepping back from competitive-level curling for a couple years. The team won four consecutive WCT events and rolled right through provincials to reach the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

While it was McCarville’s fifth trip to the national championship, it was her first time representing Northern Ontario there after the region was granted its own separate spot at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts during the previous season. McCarville went on a remarkable run qualifying for the playoffs as the fourth seed with a 7-4 round-robin record.

Her winning ways continued right to the final as McCarville defeated Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson in the page 3-4 playoff and upset Team Canada’s Jennifer Jones in the semifinal to reach the championship game against Alberta’s Chelsea Carey.

Although Carey came out on top, McCarville was still satisfied with the silver-medal finish and the silver lining of what the team was able to accomplish in that season alone.

“Even when we lost the final, we looked back and thought what a great year it’s been and the experience that we gained being at the Scotties, playing at that event. Then being in the playoffs and the Scotties final is obviously really good,” McCarville said. “It definitely brought us lots of experience, which we’ll hopefully bring into this year.” 

All teams have their eyes on Olympic Trials spots this season and McCarville is no exception. A lighter schedule makes qualifying via Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) points rather tricky although a direct berth is also up for grabs should they repeat as Northern Ontario champs then go on to win the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and medal at the world championship. That might seem like a lofty goal and getting to the Olympic Trials via the pre-trials may become the more realistic route and one McCarville is okay settling for.

“The pre-trials is something we want to get into. If we happen to get into the Trials it’s even better,” McCarville said. “We’re really aiming for the pre-trials, hoping to do well to get a spot in the pre-trials and then hopefully from there we just keep going up.”