Image credit: CFJC Today/Anthony Corea

By Marty Hastings

ON PEBBLED ICE

Brown, Hafeli of Kamloops rinks take aim at B.C. Curling Championships

Jan 8, 2025 | 6:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — With three junior B.C. titles, a junior national championship, one B.C. women’s banner and three appearances at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Team Brown has a Kamloops Sports Hall of Fame resume.

But the Kamloops Curling Club [KCC] rink – which includes skip Corryn Brown, third Erin Pincott, second Sarah Koltun and lead Samantha Fisher, along with coach Jim Cotter — would love to improve on its 1-3 record in women’s provincial finals and aims to do that later this month in Langley.

“Any time you get to play in a Scotties and represent your province it feels like an honour and an accomplishment,” Pincott said. “So, in that sense, obviously proud of those appearances. But I think we’ve left a few things on the table at the Scotties and we’d like to make a little bit of a deeper run this year and going forward.”

The men’s and women’s B.C. Curling Championships are scheduled to run from Jan. 21 to Jan. 26 in Langley.

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CFJC Today will focus on the men’s side next week.

This week, Brown rink members spoke of the season to date, which includes three quarter-final finishes and a semifinal exit, but no victories.

“I think we’ve been just so close,” said Brown rink lead Samantha Fisher, noting the team’s gruelling travel schedule this season included events that featured top teams in the country. “We’ve had some really good things going. At provincials, it’s just going to be getting all on the same page, all of us throwing and making the shots we need to get it done.”

Koltun, from Whitehorse, is a former member of the Northwest Territories rink skipped by Kerry Galusha and has ample national Scotties experience.

She moved to the River City in 2023 and took over at second for Team Brown in time for the 2024-2025 season, replacing Jennifer Armstrong.

“I feel like it’s always still growing and evolving,” Koltun said of gelling with her new team. “They’re like a little family, so it was intimidating coming in at first, just being the outsider. But they’ve always just been so great and easy to get along with. They’ve made the transition quite easy.”

Team Brown – ranked ninth in women’s Canadian Team Ranking System [CTRS] standings – suffered defeat in the 2023 and 2024 B.C. finals, losing on both occasions to Vancouver-based Team Grandy.

Clancy Grandy is no longer with the team, but the rink remains among favourites to win the B.C. title under a new skip, Kayla MacMillan, who was previously the team’s third.

Brown won the B.C. title in 2020, avenging a defeat to Team Wark of Abbotsford in the 2019 provincial final. Wark will be among the field later this month in Langley.

Team Brown reached the Championship Pool at the 2020 Scotties in Moose Jaw, Sask., but fell short of the playoffs and placed sixth, its best finish to date at nationals.

“We’ve done a lot of things as a whole and bringing Sarah on this year has been great, but definitely there’s a few things left on the table,” Fisher said. “Myself, I’ve never won provincials at the women’s level, so I personally would love to win that and I’d love to do it with this team.”

Fisher was on hiatus from Team Brown during the 2019-2020 campaign, during which Ashley Klymchuk handled lead duties.

No women’s provincial championship took place in 2021 amid the pandemic. Team Brown was named to represent the province at nationals (based on its standing as reigning champion) and posted a 4-4 record in the Calgary bubble to fall short of the playoffs.

Brown posted a 4-4 record at the Scotties last year in Calgary, where it qualified as a Wild Card team on the back of its position in CTRS standings.

The Brown rink will have company from Kamloops this year at the B.C. championship, with the up-and-coming Holly Hafeli rink making its second appearance at women’s provincials.

Skip Holly Hafeli, third Jorja Kopytko, second Gabby Brissette and lead Natalie Hafeli (Holly’s twin sister) won gold at the B.C Under-20 Curling Championships on Dec. 30 in Cloverdale.

“We looked up to them a lot,” Holly Hafeli said of Team Brown. “They’ve always supported us. There was no overshadowing feeling really. It was just more we grew up in a community that did support curling. It was just great, actually, really supportive.”

Hafeli posted a 2-5 record last year at the women’s provincial championship and fell 8-3 to Brown in the round-robin opener.

A rematch at the 2025 B.C. Championships is scheduled for later this month at the George Preston Arena.

“I’m feeling old. Not going to lie,” Pincott said with a laugh. “It feels like just yesterday that they were all in little rocks, shorter than me, and now they’re in university. They’re down here [at the KCC] just as much as we are, practising a ton, so it’s nice to see they’re putting in the work and it’s paying off.”