Newly crowned national champions Team Morrison have been selected to represent Scotland at the BKT Tires and OK Tire World Women’s Championships which take place at the CN Centre in Prince George, British Columbia later this month.
The line-up includes three players – skip Rebecca Morrison from Aberdeen, vice skip Gina Aitken and second Sophie Sinclair – who were part of British Curling’s nine player squad which also produced the new Olympic champions, as well as former Scottish Championship winning skip Sophie Jackson.
The quartet claimed victory at the Scottish Curling Championships in Dumfries last month, beating juniors Team Henderson in the final.
Morrison said: “It’s really exciting we’ve just come off a win at the Scottish Championships and we’re all really excited to see what we are capable of out there against some of the world’s best opposition.”
The skip is the only member of the team not to have been involved in a senior World Championship previously and is taking confidence from the experiences of Jackson, who skipping her then Scottish champion team at the Worlds in 2019, while Sinclair was at last year’s World Championships as alternate for Team Muirhead and Aitken has been a regular at World Mixed Doubles Championships as a multiple Scottish champion in that discipline.
“I have played at British Columbia at the World Mixed at Kelowna, too, but not at Prince George, so while it’s a totally new experience for us, we have loads of experience in the team and I am not concerned at all about this being new to me as I have the rest of the team to carry me through that,” said Morrison.
“I am fairly new to skipping in the women’s game, but this year I have won an event at the Euro Super Series as a skip and I have really made more of a mark in that skip position, so I am really feeling pretty confident and unfazed about the whole situation and quietly confident right now.”
The trip will have special poignancy for Sinclair who travelled with Team Muirhead when the Worlds were due to be held at the same venue two years ago, only for the competition to be cancelled due to the Covid lockdown on the eve of the event.
“Sophie Sinclair went out to Prince George a couple of years ago but it got cancelled unfortunately so I am sure she is super determined to get out there,” said Morrison.
“It is going to be an exciting moment for her to actually get on the ice in Prince George after such a disappointing time two years ago.”