Carman’s Shaela Hayward and her squad have had a strong start to their 2023-24 curling season.
Team Hayward consists of Shaela Hawyard, Keira Krahn, Rylie Cox and India Young, all Grade 12 students at Carman Collegiate.
“The season has gone great so far,” said Hayward. “We’ve played in five events and have made the playoffs in all of them except for the women’s event that we played in at the beginning of the season.”
In addition to competing in their events, the team has been working hard at fine-tuning their game and has added a new co-coach and team mentor, Ron Westcott, who has a plethora of curling knowledge with over 60 years of experience in the sport.
“Ron has brought a ton of knowledge and experience and has helped us focus on strategy, communication and ice reading,” said Hayward.
Team Hayward’s season highlight to date was capturing the MJCT Tour Event at the Heather Curling Club in Winnipeg from Oct. 20-22. That weekend, Hayward went 3-1 in the round-robin to advance to the playoff round. They defeated Julia Van Ryssel in the semifinals by a 6-2 score before overcoming Zoey Terrick 7-3 in the final.
“It was great to win our first MJCT tour event at the Heather in October. We played solid all weekend and controlled almost every game we played. The work and changes we have made are paying off.”
Team Hayward’s primary focus this season will be the U18 Provincials and earning a spot at the Canadian U18 Championship in Ottawa. The Asham U18 Provincials will be held from Jan 3-7 at the Selkirk Curling Club.
“We are also excited to be hosting the U21 Provincials in Carman this year and can’t wait to play in front of our home crowd.”
