The junior curling quartet of Mia Toner, Brendan Rajala, Justin Toner and Samantha Digiglio would dearly love to keep the ball rolling - or the rocks curling, I suppose - when it comes to local representatives showing well in Canadian playdowns.

Slightly less than a month ago, third Tracy Fleury (from Sudbury), skip Rachel Homan and the front end of Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes ran the table at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts for a second straight year. Starting this weekend in South Korea, Team Homan will look to accomplish the same on a larger scale, competing at the 2025 LGT Women’s World Curling Championships.

A little over a week ago, Sudbury siblings Jacob and Tanner Horgan teamed up with skip John Epping and lead Ian McMillan in representing Northern Ontario as a foursome for the very first time at the Brier. Notwithstanding the unluckiness that would lead to the team missing out on the playoffs despite posting a stellar 6-2 mark at the event, it would be hard for this version of Team Epping to be too upset over much else in the way of their performance in Kelowna.

Now the baton is passed along to the young guns, with two of the three Northern Ontario entries to the 2025 New Holland Canadian U20 Curling Championships in Summerside (P.E.I.) featuring athletes from the nickel city.

“One of the good things about this year is that I feel more prepared than we have ever been,” suggested Mia Toner, who leads the rink of Dayna Wahl (vice-skip), Justine Toner (second) and Samantha Digiglio (lead) into action, opening play against Team Northwest Territories Sunday evening.

“It’s the experience of previous years - and all of the time that we’ve put in this year.”

Ironically, this coincides with a time when the balancing act between athletics and academics has never been greater for any of these four curlers, with all now into post-secondary studies.

“I would definitely say that doing university versus high-school, while curling, is a big jump,” said Toner. “But it’s very manageable if you are organized and plan for it. Reach out to professors early in the year, switching assignments if you need to. The profs are very accommodating.”

With long-time local coach Lee Toner still guiding this ship, the notion of looking ahead on pretty much every count imaginable is virtually a given.

“Preparation is definitely key; you can never be too prepared,” said Mia. “We’ve had a lot of discussions on those little things that do make an impact: what kind of food we want to eat; when we want to eat; how long to spend on homework; which games do we want to watch and not watch.”

The entire quartet can draw on at least some experience at either a national bonspiel and some very high-end qualifiers and such, with the hope that things come together nicely as two newcomers (in the form of Wahl and Digiglio) join forces with the well-established Toner sibling tandem.

“We’ve been working hard, not only on the ice but off the ice so that we can set our priorities,” stated Mia. “We know the things that we like to do to keep our energy up and stay in a good place mentally and physically. We all know what each other needs to be successful on the ice.”

With both Toner sisters attending Queen’s University in Kingston while Wahl and Digiglio are studying at Laurentian University, the necessity to combine the benefits of separate, independent practices as well as team gatherings is key. In the world that is elite curling in Canada these days, this format is not the least bit unusual.

“Even when we were all in the same town, you often had one person who might not be able to attend a practice,” explained Mia. “When we are all together, we do tend to have longer practices and we spend more time working on technical things, video analysis, game situations and such.”

While Brendan Rajala provides a little more Sudbury content to the Canadian juniors, he is also the only Sudbury content on the NOCA championship boys team that features the troika of Justin MacKay, Ben Miskiw and Jake Clouthier, all from the Sault, with alternate Kamdyn Julien jumping aboard from the Tri-Towns.

One of two Northern Ontario teams taking part in the Men’s draw in Prince Edward Island, Team Rajala is notably younger than Team Toner, with MacKay, Clouthier and Julien all part of the NOCA boys team that competed at the U18 nationals in Saskatoon last month, posting a 3-3 record before closing out the event with an 8-4 win over British Columbia in a placement game.

“I think we’ll be a competitive team,” said Rajala, who returns to U20 Canadians after being part of the Jackson Dubinsky rink that went 3-5 last year in Fort McMurray. “We’ll win some games and lose some, for sure. I am not thinking we will go in and win the whole thing, but we want to go in and do the best that we can.”

Thankfully, this rink can return full-fold in 2026, should they wish, with all still having U20 eligibility, including their Sudbury-based skip who is just completing his second year of post-secondary studies at Cambrian College.

“If I can make the key shots and the shots I need to make, we will probably be winning most games,” said Rajala, his team on the ice earlier in the day on Sunday versus Manitoba.

As for the extra scrutiny that comes with delivering last stones, the son of team coach Brian Rajala is not terribly concerned. “Honestly, the pressure has never really bothered me much,” said Brendan. “I’ve been skipping since I started curling. I feel like I’ve kind of grown into it.”

Plus, he hails from Sudbury, home to some of the very best curlers in the country - and one need to look no further than the results from recent Canadian Championships to appreciate the outstanding lineage of on-ice talent from these parts.