Casey Scheidegger was greeted with lots of smiles and hugs as she made her first visit to the Lethbridge Curling Club since winning her first Grand Slam of Curling title.
Scheidegger won the Meridian Canadian Open by stealing a point in the eighth end for a 5-4 victory over Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni in Sunday’s final.
“It’s hard to explain,” Scheidegger said. “You’re just so excited…the feeling of just pure excitement and joy.”
Rookie Scheidegger upset Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg in the quarterfinals and then defeated another fellow Canadian in Val Sweeting to reach the women’s final.
“Making the playoffs in this event was huge for us,” she said. “That was already a really exciting moment. Then advancing to finals was just nothing we’d ever experienced before, but an amazing experience.”
Scheidegger was humbled when she found out her friends gathered at the Lethbridge Curling club to cheer her on. General manager Brent Nicol said Scheidegger’s success is helping to put the city on the map.
“Casey being a rookie, winning the grand slam, handling herself with such poise and confidence out there against some monsters of a team…it’s nothing but good things for curling for our club and our community,” Nicol said.
Scheidegger said after the match, she opened her phone to 66 text messages, along with several emails and congratulatory messages on social media that she said she is still trying to respond to.
“We felt the support all the way in North Battlefordand and I can’t thank everybody enough for sending us all the words of congratulations and coming here to cheer us on and cheering us on at their houses and whatnot.”
Team Scheidegger consists of Casey Scheidegger, third Cary-Anne McTaggart, second Jessie Scheidegger and lead Stephanie Enright. They earned $30,000 for the victory.
Comments