News Champions Cup

SHERWOOD PARK, Alta. — It was completely understandable if Kristin Clarke was feeling nervous during her first game of the Humpty’s Champions Cup.

Not only was the 19-year-old reigning world junior champion and her teammates making their Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling debut — and with regular skip Mary Fay missing the event — they were given the tough task of taking on Scotties Tournament of Hearts winners Team Chelsea Carey right off the bat.

Team Fay took to the ice Wednesday afternoon alongside the likes of Olympic gold medallist Jennifer Jones and world champion Eve Muirhead, curlers they consider idols, and under the hot TV lights in the jam-packed Sherwood Park Arena Sports Centre.

No pressure, right?

“If anything, I think we were a little bit more awestruck because we were so excited to be playing amongst people that we’ve admired for so long,” Clarke said. “To be amongst that was pretty amazing.”

While it may have seemed like a rough entry into the GSOC series, Clarke passed the opening test by remaining calm, keeping it tight and taking it one throw at a time holding her ground against the Canadian women’s champions.

Clarke forced Carey to make a tricky runback in the eighth that missed the mark and tied the game 4-4 to send it into an extra end. It was no hammer, no problem again in the decisive end for Clarke as she made Carey attempt a draw for the win with her last. The crowd was stunned when the shot was just wide enough for Clarke to swipe another point and score the unbelievable upset.

“We were obviously a little bit intimidated, I mean Canadian champions, they’re definitely a great team,” Clarke admitted. “But we just went out there and focused on one shot at a time, which made it a lot easier for us. We just kind of got used to the environment the first couple ends and managed to pull out a win.”

The format for the Humpty’s Champions Cup provided a unique opportunity where teams had to win a high-profile event over the course of the season to qualify rather than receive an invitation based on their order of merit points. The world junior curling championship was one of the select tournaments and Team Fay made the most of their opportunity absorbing as much knowledge as they could playing against the world’s best.

“It’s definitely been a huge learning experience,” said Clarke, who is studying respiratory therapy at Dalhousie University. “I mean a lot of these players are people we’ve looked up to for so many years so playing against them has been pretty cool. We learned a lot about the level of precision there is in the women’s game as opposed to the junior game for sure.”

“It’s pretty incredible,” added second Karlee Burgess, a Grade 12 student at South Colchester Academy. “Being 17 years old and getting to be able to participate in this feels pretty cool.”

Making things tricky for them though was 17-year-old skip Fay couldn’t make it to the event as the Grade 12 student had International Baccalaureate exams to write. Clarke, who skips the Dalhousie team and normally plays third for Team Fay, eased her way into the leadership role with their world juniors alternate Sarah Daniels of Delta, B.C., rejoining the rink to play third. Burgess and lead Janique LeBlanc maintained their front-end roles.

“We took Sarah to the worlds and she was a phenomenal fifth so we knew right away that’s what we were going to do because she’s so nice and she did so much for us when we were at worlds,” Burgess explained. “We wanted to give her the chance to play with us and invited her here.”

Burgess couldn’t recall the last time she hadn’t played with Fay, but being able to call upon Daniels to sub proved to be key for the team.

“Having played with Sarah at worlds, she’s such a great person,” Clarke added. “She’s so sweet and she’s a great team player, a great communicator, so she made it really easy for us to kind of make that transition.”

Team Fay’s second game of the tournament Thursday saw them play a familiar face in Kelsey Rocque. The Edmonton skip Rocque is only a year removed from the junior scene herself and wrapping up a sensational rookie season currently ranked eighth on the World Curling Tour’s year-to-date OOM and third on the money list with almost $110,000 earned.

It’s rare that the 22-year-old Rocque is the veteran skip on the sheet, but that was the case for the 2014 and 2015 world junior champ when she faced Team Clarke.

While Rocque walked away with the 7-4 win, she was quick to praise her opponents after the game.

“They stuck with us the whole way,” Rocque said. “Tons of credit to them. They’ll be around for a long time.”

Although Team Fay dropped their other two games to Ayumi Ogasawara and Silvana Tirinzoni and finished out of the playoffs with a 1-3 record, the Humpty’s Champions Cup proved to be an eye-opening experience as they were now the role models signing autographs for young, starstruck fans after their games.

“It’s hard to put into words how much that meant to us because this is definitely where we want to get to in the future and you want to be able to compete at this level,” Clarke added. “To get a taste of it in juniors has definitely been amazing.”

Clarke now looks to captain the team herself with Fay deciding to step back from curling to focus on her education.