{"id":535489,"date":"2026-03-14T08:06:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T08:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/535489\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T08:06:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T08:06:29","slug":"kerri-einarson-returns-to-calgary-with-sights-set-on-womens-world-curling-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/535489\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerri Einarson returns to Calgary with sights set on women’s world curling gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Kerri Einarson’s curling team commences its bid for a women’s world title Saturday in an arena where the skip has felt both joy and pain.<\/p>\n

Einarson, vice Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard, lead Karlee Burgess and alternate Krysten Karwacki open the 13-country BKT Women’s World Curling Championship against Sweden at Calgary’s WinSport Event Centre.<\/p>\n

Einarson, out of Manitoba’s Gimli Curling Club, also wants to keep the world title in Canada after back-to-back gold medals by Rachel Homan’s team.<\/p>\n

“Rachel’s definitely set the bar high for us,” Einarson said Friday after practice in the arena on Calgary’s west side.<\/p>\n

Einarson and company won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts on Feb. 1 in Mississauga, Ont., where the skip made a long angle raise against four Kaitlyn Lawes counters to force an extra end.<\/p>\n

“It’s the best shot I’ve ever been a part of,” Burgess said. “It’ll be forever ingrained in my brain.”<\/p>\n

\"FourTeam Canada lead Karlee Burgess, second Shannon Birchard, Sweeting and Einarson celebrate after they won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts curling finals. (Frank Gunn\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

An Einarson steal in the 11th gave the skip and Edmonton’s Sweeting their fifth national title, Birchard her sixth and Burgess her first.<\/p>\n

February’s Olympic Games pushing the Hearts to earlier in the curling calendar gave Einarson a break of over a month before the world championship, instead of the customary two weeks.<\/p>\n

“We feel really good,” the 38-year-old skip said. “We’re not used to having a month off after the Scotties.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been practising lots and had some really great team practices. We came here four days early and had good training days, so we feel prepared and ready.”<\/p>\n

Einarson, Sweeting, Birchard and Brianne Harris claimed back-to-back world championship bronze medals in 2022 in Prince George, B.C., and 2023 in Sandviken, Sweden.<\/p>\n

They also represented Canada in 2021 in Calgary after winning their second straight national title there. Calgary was the site of a seven-event COVID-19 curling bubble from February to May that year.<\/p>\n

Einarson and company went 7-6 and were ousted in their first playoff game at WinSport.<\/p>\n

\"AEinarson, centre, in action against Japan during the 2023 Women’s Curling Championship in Sandviken, Sweden on March 25. (Jonas Ekstromer\/TT News Agency via Reuters)<\/p>\n

No fans were allowed into the building during the bubble. Some bought cardboard cut-outs that were placed in empty seats.<\/p>\n

On the eve of the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Calgary, where Einarson sought a record fifth consecutive Canadian title, Harris tested positive for a banned substance.<\/p>\n

Harris wasn’t allowed to compete there or anywhere until she was cleared 11 months later. A discombobulated Einarson team fell short of the final four at Hearts.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had some really great experiences in this building and some not so great experiences in the building,” Birchard said. “That’s just part of the game and part of curling.”<\/p>\n

Einarson deployed multiple subs during the 2024-25 season in the absence of Harris, and also Birchard because of a knee injury.<\/p>\n

She eventually replaced Harris with 27-year-old Burgess. Birchard recovered to return to the team this season.<\/p>\n

Einarson has also played in a pair of PointsBet Invitationals and a Pan Continental Championship in Calgary over the last half-decade.<\/p>\n

\"AEinarson calls a sweep during Scotties Tournament of Hearts finals action. (Frank Gunn\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

“We’ve definitely played in this venue a ton and we know our way around and it definitely feels like home,” Einarson said. “It’s so nice here and a beautiful facility. This week, instead of staying at the hotel, we changed it up a little bit and got an Airbnb so I think that kind of changes things a little for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Just being all together, we like being in an AirBnBs and playing our board games and hanging out as a team. We’re playing marbles. We’re pretty competitive. It gets heated.”<\/p>\n

This world championship will be the last of a 13-country, single round-robin format. Men’s and women’s fields will expand to 18 teams in 2027 and divided into two pools of nine.<\/p>\n

The top six teams at the conclusion of the preliminary round March 20 advance. The top two are seeded directly into semifinals the following day.<\/p>\n

The remaining four square off for the right to join them in the semifinals. The medal games are March 22.<\/p>\n

Canadian teams have won 19 women’s world championship gold since 1979, followed by Switzerland with 10 and Sweden with eight.<\/p>\n

WATCH | The inspiration behind Canada’s 2026 team uniforms:\"\"<\/p>\n

Indigenous artist brings meaningful imagery to new Curling Canada uniforms<\/p>\n

At an event in Thunder Bay, Ont., Curling Canada unveiled their 2026 team uniforms, featuring a design inspired by nature, Indigenous culture, and the iconic Maple Leaf.<\/p>\n

“We just want to position ourselves well through the round robin and then take playoffs as they come, and just get ourselves into that gold-medal game,” Sweeting said.<\/p>\n

“You don’t know how many times you’re going to be in this position. To make the most of it and to come home with a victory, I think would mean so much.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-535489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-calgary","10":"tag-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}