The Scotties Tournament of Hearts starts Friday in the Calgary Bubble, and New Dominion PEI’s Lauren Lenentine (right in photo), on Team Wildcard 2, skipped by Mackenzie Zacharias, will be in the opening draw.

TSN/RDS2 will provide coverage of every draw at the Scotties. Here’s Team Zacharias’ Scotties round-robin schedule, courtesy of Curl Manitoba (add 1 hour for PEI time):

Here’s a “Meet the Teams” feature on Team Wildcard 2 from Curling Canada:

Team Wild Card 2 (L-R):  Skip Mackenzie Zacharias, Third Karlee Burgess, Second Emily Zacharias, Lead Lauren Lenentine

WC2 – MAN – ZACHARIAS

After winning the 2020 World Junior Championship, the next logical goal for Winnipeg’s Mackenzie Zacharias would be to eventually reach a Scotties Tournament of Hearts. With all the depth at the women’s level, it is unlikely that she expected it to happen so soon.

Thanks to her World Junior win, the Canadian Junior win, and several solid finishes in World Curling Tour cash events, Zacharias (with Karlee Burgess, Emily Zacharias, and Lauren Lenentine) found herself in 11th place on the Canadian Team Ranking System. 

When all of the teams in the top 10 had either qualified, deferred, or were deemed ineligible due to lineup changes, the expanded Wild Card format meant that Team Zacharias would be invited to be the fourth Manitoba team in the Scotties field.

Although this team is fresh out of the junior ranks (some players are still eligible as juniors), there is no shortage of experience. While everyone on the team has a World Junior gold medal, vice Karlee Burgess has three. She also won with Mary Fay in 2016, and Kaitlyn Jones in 2018, in addition to winning gold at the 2016 Youth Winter Olympics with Fay, Tyler Tardi and Sterling Middleton. 

They’ll bring along Rachel Erickson as an alternate, and Sheldon Zacharias as coach.

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