By Canadian Press

Curling Canada under fire for limiting eligibility for pregnancy exemptions

Feb 1, 2023 | 12:36 PM

Curling Canada was under fire Wednesday after limiting pregnancy exemption eligibility for teams hoping to add an out-of-province free agent at the national playdowns to just the top five rinks in the rankings.

The exemption would allow a team to use a replacement player at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts even if the athlete didn’t play in the provincial/territorial championship or meet residency requirements.

However, the decision meant 13 of the 18 teams that qualified for the Feb. 17-26 event in Kamloops, B.C., could not apply to make similar lineup changes if needed. Several prominent curlers — including Olympian Dawn McEwen, Mike McEwen, Felix Asselin and Beth Peterson — criticized the eligibility rule on social media.

“Timing a pregnancy can be stressful and difficult for a lot of women athletes,” Dawn McEwen said on Twitter. “A rule that discriminates against some women competing in the same national field is troubling.

“Please give everyone the same opportunity CurlingCanada.”

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Details on the exemption were provided Tuesday in a Curling Canada news release that unveiled the Scotties draw.

The organization said the wild-card team skipped by fourth-ranked Kaitlyn Lawes of Manitoba was allowed to use Laura Walker as a replacement for vice Selena Njegovan, who was granted a pregnancy leave.

“The exemption applied only to top five teams because their ability to replace a player with someone with an equal level of ability and commitment is limited,” the release said.

Nolan Thiessen, Curling Canada’s executive director of marketing and fan experience, said the organization worked with its athlete council and leading experts in the field to discuss the concept.

“Every list and ranking has a cutoff and determining where that is can be a hard process,” he said. “It was understood that there is an exceptionally limited pool of elite athletes who would both qualify as a substitute athlete and meet residency requirements for teams in the top five.

“If after teams make reasonable efforts to secure a substitute athlete that meets the requirements of the residency eligibility rules and they are unable to do so, we outlined that a team may seek to have a substitute athlete who does not meet these requirements.”

Under residency rules, at least three of four players must live or have birthright status in their respective province or territory. Only one free agent is allowed unless an exemption is granted.

Njegovan, lead Kristin MacCuish and Lawes are Winnipeg-based while Calgary resident Jocelyn Peterman is the import.

The Edmonton-based Walker is focusing on mixed doubles this season but she has subbed in for the team on occasion. Her addition would not have been possible if Lawes was ranked sixth or lower.

Asselin, who will skip the Quebec entry at next month’s Tim Hortons Brier, called the rule an example of “elitism” and “favouritism.”

“All women curlers should be allowed to get replaced in the case of pregnancy with someone that follows all the residency rule(s),” Asselin tweeted. “It can’t be an excuse to add an import. This is very sad.”

The 2022 Scotties was won by top-ranked Kerri Einarson of Manitoba.

She beat Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville — currently 61st in the rankings — in the final. Einarson had advanced with a semifinal win over New Brunswick’s Andrea Kelly, who’s now ranked 16th.

Einarson (284.750 points) leads Ontario’s Rachel Homan (270.750), Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones (206.000), Lawes (183.250) and British Columbia’s Clancy Grandy (166.625) in the current rankings.

Alberta’s Casey Scheidegger (161.750) is sixth and seventh-ranked Meghan Walter (160.500) of Manitoba are barely outside the top five.

“I’m confused to what position/standing in CTRS (rankings) has to do with this,” Scheidegger second Jessie Haughian said on Twitter. “Pregnancy is pregnancy.”

Peterson, who made her Scotties debut in 2021, also weighed in on the rule.

“I’m sorry, but is this not disrespectful to other pregnant women?” she tweeted. “I just can’t get behind giving the exemption to some teams and not to others.”

Some curlers compete while pregnant — Homan was memorably eight months pregnant when she reached the 2021 Scotties final — but sometimes substitute players are needed.

When asked for a deeper explanation on why only five teams were eligible to apply for the exemption, Thiessen offered the following via email:

“We consulted with our legal experts and subject matter experts and generally the top five are the teams that end up in national team programs, funded through Sport Canada and therefore the rest of the team members are affected by this and they provided feedback that this was a valid policy change,” he said.

“When we went through this process we were not looking at the ranking list.”

The Scotties champion will represent Canada at the March 18-26 world women’s curling championship in Sandviken, Sweden.

Also Wednesday, Curling Canada announced the 2023 PointsBet Invitational will be played Sept. 26-Oct. 1 at the Sixteen Mile Sports Complex in Oakville, Ont.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2023.

Follow @GregoryStrongCP on Twitter.

Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press