Woodstock Rink Heading to Ontario Scotties

Friday, 24 January 2020 11:30

Team Balsdon will be representing Woodstock at the Ontario Scotties next week. They are looking for redemption after losing in the finals to Rachel Homan last year.

WOODSTOCK - A Woodstock Curling rink is heading to the Ontario Scotties next week in Cornwall.

Team Balsdon is one of 9 teams in the Province to qualify for the major bonspiel. The team was formerly known as Team Tippin, however they had to restructure when skip Julie Tippin moved to Quebec. Megan Balsdon stepped up to skip the team and they added another member in Lynn Kreviazuk as the new third on the team.

Second on the team Rachelle Strybosch is the only member of the team who lives in Woodstock and says they are excited to head to Cornwall and are looking for some redemption after coming oh, so close last year.

"We lost the final last year to Rachel Homan, who is obviously one of the best teams in the world. So having that experience of already playing in a final against her is huge for us, it was a close game, so we know we can stay in there, you don't have to beat them in the round robin, you need to beat them in the final. So we just hope to have a good week, make the playoffs, take it from there and hope to get back into that final."

Strybosch says reaching the Scotties is something every curler strives for.

"Every curler growing up, you watch the Brier and the Scotties on TV and it is a huge dream of mine to reach the Scotties and represent Ontario and to just have that experience would be absolutely incredible."

The Balsdon team has travelled a lot this year, playing in major bonspiel's. She notes they wouldn't be able to do this without their local sponsors.

"We are pretty lucky we have a lot of local ones, Techra Chem Industries out of Ingersoll and Uvalux, Australian Gold, Woodstock Meadows, The Golf School, Dominion Securities and Grand River out of Kitchener, so we have a lot of local ones that are very, very good to us and we would not be able to curl without them."

Strybosch says they have been training really hard for the Ontario Scotties and the team is ready to go.

"At the beginning of every season, we sit down as a team and kind of lay out our goals and how we are going to get to those goals. Curling is kind of a unique sport because not very often to do have all four players in the same city. For example we have two players from Toronto, one from Ottawa and I'm from Woodstock. So we each set our own training schedule, going to practice, going to the gym and then we get together a couple of times a year for a team practice. It is a lot of self commitment I guess, just knowing that you are going out to practice by yourself, but knowing that it will pay off when you get together as a team."

Stay tuned to Heart FM next week as we provide updates at the Balsdon rink at the Ontario Scotties.