A fresh quadrennial means new faces, different lineups and several unanswered questions on the Canadian women's curling scene.
Olympic representative Rachel Homan has a new coach. World champion Jennifer Jones has a new teammate. Scotties finalist Kerri Einarson has three former skips on her new rink.
Chelsea Carey has a new lineup while Tracy Fleury is skipping Einarson's old team. Laura Walker will skip Carey's previous team and Kelsey Rocque is reuniting with some of her junior teammates.
Break out the lineup cards. It may take a little time to get used to who's playing with who this season.
Roster moves are quite common in an Olympic year as teams tinker with lineups for the next four-year cycle. Factor in player retirements — Michelle Englot is a notable example — and the list of changes can be a long one.
Jones and Homan appear to once again be the best bets for success in the 2018-19 campaign.
"Everyone is trying to figure out how to catch up with them," said longtime curling broadcaster Mike Harris, who represented Canada at the 1998 Nagano Olympics.
Jones is second on the World Curling Tour's order of merit behind Sweden's Anna Hasselborg and leads the pack of 10 Canadian teams in the top 20.
After winning her sixth career Scotties Tournament of Hearts title last winter, she went on to beat Hasselborg for her second career world title. The Jones team has brought on Jocelyn Peterman at second after Jill Officer stepped away from competitive curling.
Peterman won a Scotties title in 2016 with Carey and they reached the final of the Olympic Trials together last December.
Homan, meanwhile, missed the podium at the Pyeongchang Games. She closed last season with a Grand Slam win at the Champions Cup and kicked off the new campaign with a World Cup victory.
"Looking in the rear view, we get a lot of confidence from everything we've accomplished and we're so grateful for all the experiences that we had," said Homan second Joanne Courtney. "But I don't think that anyone feels as if we're done yet. I think we feel that there is still areas for improvement in all aspects of our game.
"Looking at the next quadrennial, I think we're excited to see how far we can push ourselves."
Einarson is throwing fourth stones for perhaps the most intriguing rink this season.
She's off to a great start with former skips Val Sweeting (playing third), Shannon Birchard (second) and Briane Meilleur (lead). They stormed out of the gate this month by winning three straight bonspiels.
"I thought it was possible, we all have a lot of talent and know what it takes to win," Einarson said. "I didn't think it would happen right off the start but it's great that it has. Things have just been clicking."
Longtime broadcaster and six-time national champion Colleen Jones said it will be interesting to see how the Einarson team members adjust to their new roles over the course of the season.
"That is a team that you have to kind of wait and see," Jones said in a recent interview. "How do all of those skips handle suddenly not being the boss or not being in charge. You never know that until a team really faces adversity.
"That's what makes or breaks teams. How they handle that and come through that is the test."
Teams skipped by Casey Scheidegger, Darcy Robertson, Krista McCarville and Allison Flaxey could also make some noise this season.
The Elite 10 begins Wednesday at the St. Clair Campus Arena in Chatham-Kent, Ont., one of five Grand Slams on the schedule ahead of the 2019 Scotties in Sydney, N.S. Team Jennifer Jones will return to the Feb. 16-24 national championships as Team Canada.
"It very much is a two-horse race between Jennifer and Rachel and then you've got the other players that you have to kind of see," said Colleen Jones. "Where do they land and how do they shape up, and what is the gap between the top two and the rest of the field.
"Right now that gap looks pretty big."
The Scotties winner will represent Canada at the March 16-24 world women's curling championship in Silkeborg, Denmark.
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Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press
