A change for Curling Canada Scotties qualifying is good for the teams and for the national events/Curling Canada being able to promote name teams almost a year in advance. Not so good for provincial championship events, specifically the 2024 Scotties in Morden. They lost Team Einarson as an attraction when the Gimli four repeated as national champion. Now they have lost Team Jones (confirmed today, see below) and the local attraction of her young teammates who represented Altona for many years. It was proposed nearly a decade ago and has been inevitable for a few years – that the CTRS teams should be removed from the pool before provincial play. The argument then was that they were an important attraction to fans in the provincial event. The argument now may be that with Einarson and Jones teams both absent, there may in fact be more teams interested in playing at the provincial level.

(Curling Canada Release) Three of the 18 teams that will play at the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts next February in Calgary have been confirmed.

Four-time defending champions Team Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man., clinched the first berth into the 2024 Scotties, set for Feb. 16-25 at the WinSport Event Centre in Calgary, by capturing the 2023 Scotties title earlier this year in Kamloops, B.C. Today, Curling Canada confirmed that Team Rachel Homan of Ottawa and Team Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg will be part of the 2024 Scotties field as pre-qualified teams based on their 2022-23 Canadian Team Ranking System performance.

It will be the first time three teams have pre-qualified for the Scotties this far in advance of the event. The changes to the qualifying for the Scotties and Brier, as well as the Canadian Curling Trials, were announced in April.

Team Homan  — the team is rounded out by vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew and lead Sarah Wilkes — finished second in the CTRS this past season thanks to a pair of victories on the Pinty’s Grand Slam circuit — the Hearing Life Tour Challenge in Grande Prairie, Alta., and the Kioti Tractor Champions Cup in Regina — and posted a 50-17 record overall.

Team Jones — with third Karlee Burgess and front-enders Emily Zacharias and Lauren Lenentine —  was third in the CTRS standings. Team Jones, representing Manitoba, captured the silver medal at the 2023 Scotties and also won the inaugural PointsBet Invitational last September in Fredericton, N.B. Team Jones finished the 2022-23 season with a 68-35 record.

There will be a fourth pre-qualified team for the 2024 Scotties in Calgary as the top non-qualified team on the 2023-24 CTRS standings at the conclusion of the provincial and territorial playdowns will earn a trip to Calgary.

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