Stratton curlers one step away from Scott Tournament of hearts

Ken Johnston
Editor

Two ladies from Stratton are one step away from the Scott Tournament of hearts after they finished second at the District Playdowns over the weekend.
Angie Lee skipped while her sister Andrea played lead. Both these ladies hail from Stratton, but are now curling in Thunder Bay where they live. Joining them on the ice was Amy Stachiw at third and Kelli Smith at second. Angie, Andrea and Kelli have are curling together for the third year and Amy has joined the team.
Over the weekend they competed in the district playdowns that can have teams from as far away as Rainy River in the West and Manitouwadge in the east. However this year there were six Thunder Bay teams and one from Longlac.
The playdowns were set up in a round robin format with the top two teams advancing to provincials. Andrea said that they were tied for second place going into their last game with both teams having a 3–2 record. “It was close right up until the 9th end.” Then the team scored five and their opponents resigned to send the Lee rink to the provincials in Sudbury January 27-February 1st.
Of the 4 wins they had, Andrea said two of them were easy but the other two came right down to the 10 end.
Andrea said they are not kidding themselves about how tough it will be at provincials. “One of the girls went and won one game. Another went and did not win a game. We are setting our sights on winning two games. If we do better than that, great!”
The team is under new direction this year. Bruce Melville is coaching them. He brings recent brier curling experience to the team, having been there in 1998 himself as a competitor. He also just returned from teaching curling clinics in Germany for three months.
Melville approached the team and said he would be interested in coaching them. They practise a couple of nights a week as well as play in a Monday night league and just completed Major League where they earned money for playing. The team finished 5th out of 12 in the Major League.
Lee said the entire team gets along well and that they not only enjoy competing, but also have a lot of fun playing together.
Congrats ladies and good luck at Provincials!