Team Martin ready to represent Saskatchewan at 2025 Scotties

Saskatoon’s Nancy Martin is ready to represent Saskatchewan at the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Thunder Bay, Ont.

“It’s a dream come true to go there as a skip,” said Martin. “To win that provincial final has just been unreal – just a moment I sort of dreamed for a long time.”

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The trip to the Scotties as skip has been a long time coming for Martin. In 2021, while she was the third for Team Sherry Anderson, Martin’s team qualified automatically for the Scotties after it was awarded a free spot during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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But aside from that one stroke of luck, Martin has lost out in the final of the provincial championship in four of the last five editions of the tournament while trying to qualify for the Scotties.

Finally, this year, Martin got over the hump and was able to beat Jolene Campbell’s rink 8-7 in the final to secure her team’s birth at this year’s Scotties.

“It kind of feels like a little bit of something off your shoulder,” Martin said. “The girls played unreal, and we wouldn’t have got there without how crazy good they played all week.”

After the 2022 season, Martin decided to leave Team Anderson and skip her own rink. Her team this year includes lead Deanna Doig, second Kadriana Lott, third Chaelynn Stewart and Colleen Ackerman as the alternate.

There’s a good mix of experienced and younger players on the squad. Martin and Doig are the veterans of the team, and are both in their 50s, while Stewart and Lott are still in their 20s.

Martin said a big reason she constructed the team the way she did is because of each player’s commitment to mixed doubles.

“Going into this year, I was really wanting to focus on mixed doubles. My thought was to talk to some girls who are also focusing on mixed doubles. That’s how I ended up with Chaelynn, who plays a lot of mixed doubles with her husband Brayden, and then Kadriana, who plays with her husband. Kadriana is the reigning Canadian champion in mixed doubles,” Martin explained.

“We just thought that schedule might work better for us where we could each focus on mixed doubles (and) give ourselves permission to kind of show up when we can. That really worked for us.”

Martin said a couple of the players on her team were actually surprised to make it to the Scotties.

“Each of them kind of voiced to me they didn’t think they were either going back or going to the Scotties, so it was a dream come true for them all. In Colleen’s case, she had said she kind of stepped back from women’s play to let her husband focus on competitive curling, so she never thought this dream was going to be a reality for her,” she said.

“Kadriana focuses so much on mixed doubles that she hadn’t really put it in her plan. Our plan was to get ourselves to provincials and then kind of build up our week and get better as the games went on. We did that, so our plan worked this time.”

Doig and Stewart will also be making their second appearances at the Scotties, while Lott is the team’s lone rookie making her debut. Lott curled with Manitoba at the provincial level until this past season.

On Wednesday, the members of Team Martin will fly to Thunder Bay for the Scotties. Their first game is on Friday night against the tournament’s Northern Ontario hosts.

The Scotties will be different this time around for Martin, as there will be fans in the stands.

Because of the new terrain, Martin has hired Anderson as her team’s coach. Anderson is from Prince Albert originally, and has appeared at the Scotties on 10 different occasions.

Martin said there are lots of distractions at the national championship tournament.

“It’s one of the reasons why I wanted Sherry to be a part of this team – I feel like she’s a really good calming influence on us,” Martin explained. “We’re excited to have her and help kind of keep the path clear.”

Anderson said the Scotties isn’t just another event during the season.

“It’s exhilarating. It’s exciting. It’s always nice to play in front of a lot of people, and if you enjoy that then you feed off that,” Anderson said. “I think the team is going to be very much benefited by the crowd.”

Saskatchewan’s first game against Northern Ontario will be broadcast live on TSN starting at 6 p.m. local time.

The province has not won the national championship since 2011.