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Winter Games the warm-up to provincials for Team Croisier
2020-02-29

For a good majority of the athletes on hand in Orillia, Bracebridge, Barrie, and points in between, venues of choice for the 2020 Ontario Winter Games (OWG), the excitement of this once-in-a-lifetime experience will surpass all others in the winter of 2019-2020.

One can excuse Team Croisier (Bella Croisier - Lauren Rajala - Emilie Lovitt - Piper Croisier) for not sharing quite that same feeling.

Three quarters of this team not only participated in the 2019 Canada Winter Games in Red Deer (Alberta), but also claimed gold at that very event, making it an impressive double by also topping the field at the 2019 Canadian U18 Curling Championships, also in Alberta, less than two months later.

Throw in the fact that the team’s vice-skip, Lauren Rajala, not only participated in the International Youth Olympics in January in Switzerland, but was named the Team Canada flag-bearer for Opening Ceremonies, and one can see that the current OWG might pale, just a touch, by comparison.

On top of all of this comes the fact that these playdowns are taking place less than a week before the NOCA (Northern Ontario Curling Association) U18 provincials in Sault Ste Marie, the very event that the young Idylwylde Golf & Country Club foursome needs to capture in order to have a chance to defend their national title at home in Sudbury in April.

"It's an event that we want to win, for sure, but it's a tune-up for our provincials next week," acknowledged Bella Croisier, the team en route to Orillia this past Thursday morning. "That's probably how we are going to be treating it."

As you might have deduced from the six previous paragraphs, the 2018-2019 season not only produced a lifetime worth of memories for the Croisier sisters and Rajala (as well as Jamie Smith, who has aged out of the U18 requirement to compete at OWG in curling), but also equipped the young ladies with several wonderful reference points, moving forward.

"I think the experience of having been there, knowing what happens at these multi-sport events, is helpful," said skip Croisier. "It's also about how to manage the stress of school, with being away multiple days at a time. The experience from last year definitely carried over to this year."

Of course, that holds true for all but Lovitt, the Ottawa native who moved to Sudbury to compete with Team Croisier this year. Still, the first year student at Laurentian University is tapping into more and more of her new teammates' knowledge with every passing week. "When you get to know someone better, even just as a teammate, you start developing a relationship with them, a trust," explained Lovitt.

"It just feels very natural now. I mean, it always has, but even moreso now, with time going by. Just knowing what to say to your teammates to help them get their best performance - knowing what they want to hear after they have missed a shot or they've made a shot - it's all important."

And then comes the whole personal side of that equation, just having more folks around to help guide the balance of academics and athletics when you are elite in both fields. "It's like having a second family," said Lovitt. "With my parents so far away, it's really nice having that support system."

"It's just a lot of fun being together all the time; we all have a passion for the same thing."

As for the upcoming Winter Games, not all that is the environment that awaits them represents an entirely different landscape for Lovitt. "It is a multi-sport event, which is probably the biggest difference," she said. "In our down time, we can go and watch and support other teams, in other sports, which should be fun."

"But the competition is the same as we've seen before."

In fact, Ottawa skip Emily Deschenes is the same adversary that Croisier beat in the gold medal game at the Canadian Championships last April, back in the U18 grouping this year with her team of Emma Artichuk, Jillian Uniacke and Celeste Gauthier.

Rounding out the six team women's field, some of whom Team Croisier have faced before, some, not so much, are Charlotte Johnston (London), Britney Malette (Thunder Bay), Sophia Johnston (Toronto) and Tori Zemmelink (Palmerston).

In the end, Lovitt is hopeful that some of the fine-tuning that she and her teammates have enjoyed this year pays dividends over the course of the next two weeks. "With this team, we've focused a lot on balance," she said. "That's just a matter of strengthening your core and focusing on that during your release and slide."

"That's helped me a great deal. And with sweeping, we've just been working on the strategy that we have learned with the OCC (Ontario Curling Council)."

And with members of this team having participated in numerous bonspiels that crossed over into the Open Women's field, as well as U21 competitions, there is something to being back in their own age bracket that feels a little more comfortable.

"We're excited," said Bella Croisier. "The last couple of events that we've done have been Scotties Provincials and U21's before that, so I'm excited to get some U18 curling in, just to be able to focus on that for the rest of the season."

The Croisier rink will need to recover from a tough opening draw loss in order to secure a top three placement and earn a spot in the semi-finals. Up 5-3 over Team Zemmelink heading to the eighth and final end, the locals surrendered a three-spot and were handed a 6-5 loss to open play at the Barnfield Point Recreation Centre. The team will play a total of five round robin games spread between Friday and Saturday.

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