Kristen Fewster spent most of her 27 years living within a stone's throw of the Prince George Golf and Curling Club.
The ice that will decide the 2014 B.C. Scotties Tournament of Hearts curling champion over the next week is where Fewster and her sister Jen Rusnell learned the game from their father Rick, but oddly enough, neither of the two women have played a big game there.
In fact, Fewster figures she had not yet reached her teen years when she last played a meaningful game in her home rink. That will drought will end today at 11 a.m. when Fewster steps onto the ice at PGGCC to play second for Patti Knezevic in the opening draw against Shawna Jensen of Victoria.
"We're very excited because we've never played here before in front of friends and family and people who have supported us since we were kids,"said Fewster, who now lives in Squamish.
"We played I think one playoff here when I was 12. I think it will be fun to play at home and look up in the stands and see familiar faces and hopefully we'll use that as something to lift us during the week as opposed to adding pressure on us."
The B.C. women's championship has never been hosted in Prince George.
While they have homes in Prince George to stay at, Knezevic, lead Rhonda Camozzi, Fewster and third Rusnell will be treating it like every other curling roadtrip. They'll stay together all week with spare Nicole Backe at a city hotel.
Knezevic's crew got off to a great start and qualified for the Scotties in mid-November, based on their Canadian Team Ranking System points standing. It wasn't quite so easy for Tracey Jones. The skip of the other Prince George rink playing for the Scotties title, was a late qualifier, not reaching that goal until the third weekend in December. The Jones rink, which includes third Falon Burkitt, second Kay Thompson, lead Melinda Kotch and coach Doug Dalziel, needed to play 13 games and 118 ends at three tournaments just to make the grade for the 10-team tournament. But now that they are there, they plan to enjoy the ride.
"We're totally looking forward to this week and are just going to go out and enjoy ourselves," said Jones, part of the city's extensive Martin clan. "We've played most of these teams before and hopefully we can play our best and come home with the 'W'.' This is the first year for this team so getting those extra games definitely helped us going into this."
Jones, 37, considers this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
"I'm not nervous, I just hope we come out sharp and enjoy the moment. We're really pumped to be part of this because obviously it's not going to be back here again when I'm curling," said Jones, following Sunday's practice session. "I hope this place is packed all week."
