Team Ackerman (submitted photo/Ashley Thevenot)

By Ben Tompkins

Team Saskatchewan

Melfort third reflects on 2024 Scotties’ experience

Feb 28, 2024 | 11:27 AM

The 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts wrapped up this past Sunday in Calgary, which for a lot of those athletes means returning to their normal day-to-day lives.

For Ashley Thevenot in particular, who played third on Skylar Ackerman’s Team Saskatchewan, she is now back to work as a vet tech in Melfort.

“It’s kind of like back to reality now because everyone in the curling world knows who you are, but everyone in the regular world either doesn’t know or doesn’t follow curling, so it’s a bit of a reality adjustment coming home, but it’s been good so far.”

This past tournament was the first time she and her team represented Saskatchewan together on the national stage, as they showed off a very respectable performance.

As one of the youngest teams there, they began the week 3 and 0, before missing the playoffs by what felt like a single hair.

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“It was very exciting after winning our provincials because it was our first Scotties, so going to experience that for the first time was pretty incredible. After experiencing all the new things and feeling like a celebrity up there, it was pretty incredible and more than we could have ever imagined,” Thevenot told northeastNOW.

“We’re super happy with how things turned out, obviously winning three in a row out right off the bat I think our adrenaline was still going after the first few days because it’s such an amazing event and a great experience. It was a little unfortunate losing out on that playoff spot by a last-shot draw count, but we’re pretty happy with missing playoffs by a hair with our first year there.”

After round-robin play was over, five teams were tied for the final playoff spot in Pool A, all with records of 4 and 4.

Each team was also 2 and 2 against each other, which meant the tiebreaker came down to draw to the button totals, which secured the last spot for Team Lawes out of Manitoba.

Despite the heartbreak, the team out of the Nutana Curling Club in Saskatoon took it in stride and is now just using it to feed the fire of the future.

“We knew we had put in the work all season to compete at an event like that and although going up against those big names was a first for us, we thought we could hold our own and we did have some good games against some really great teams. We were pretty happy with that experience and we’re hungry for more,” added Thevenot.

“I think having that first Scotties experience is always a big milestone lots of curlers look to try to get to, so having that experience under our belts will give us just that much more confidence going into next year that we can compete and that the work we put in is paying off. Hopefully, we keep performing well and are able to qualify for some tour events to get us playing against those teams more regularly and give us a better chance when we do get to the Scotties again.”

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