A great number of young and ambitious – and quite talented – up and coming Sudbury and area curling rinks have accelerated their development by competing in the top adult league of their time locally, taking full advantage of absorbing the wisdom that lies in the experience of so many who have competed on a provincial and national scale.
This year, that notion has expanded to include more well-tenured curlers who might be looking to ramp things up quickly for play beyond the Open level with newly-assembled teams or relatively new competitive curlers – and in some cases, elements of both of the above.
Lisa (Gauvreau) Rouillard is no stranger to testing herself against the very best – though her new team that features skip Louise Logan, Jill Dutrisac at vice, Debbie Szymanski at second and the woman who can boast almost five decades of curling background at lead is taking the plunge for the first time as a collective foursome.
With their sights set on a good showing at the NOCA Senior Women’s Provincials at the end of March, the new version of Team Logan had just finished playing their very first game together, part of the Wednesday night draw at the Idylwylde Golf & Country Club as the Sudbury Premier League now welcomes teams to two separate venues weekly – the other being the Northern Credit Union Community Centre.
“We had really good communication out there,” said Rouillard as her team opened the 2026-2027 season on a winning note. “There were a couple of occasions where Louise asked me to sweep a certain way and we are used to a different terminology.”
“We conferred and were able to clarify all of that on the fly – and that worked well for us.”
Rouillard has witnessed the best that curling has to offer when everything is clicking. Her mixed team that included skip Chris Johnson, vice Barb McKinty and second Drew Eloranta captured the national title in 1997 and were later inducted into the Sudbury Sports Hall of Fame.
“Barb was such a great shooter – she outshot all of her competitors – and Drew is so knowledgeable about the game,” said Rouillard, outlining her memories of the relative strengths of that team that helped provide a second trip to Mixed Nationals, having also competed in 1994 with now teammate Jill (Clark) Dutrisac.
“Drew taught me how to watch a rock, while sweeping,” Rouillard added. “And Chris was in the zone.”
First introduced to the sport via the Coniston Curling Club as she entered her teenage years, Lisa Gauvreau went on to curl at the high-school level with the Marymount Regals before earning provincial university silver medals on a few occasions as a member of the Windsor Lancers curling team.
Now at a different stage of her life and with a vastly different schedule, Rouillard is thankful for the opportunity that the Premier League offers to her new seniors entry. “This league works out for all of us,” she said.
Making just one small lineup change, ironically in tandem with the above-noted rink, Maryann Zanchetta and the Margo Loney crew that attended the Canadian Masters Curling Championships last year in Grande Prairie (AB) will also be looking for the Premier League to provide just the right amount of competition to give the local ladies a chance at repeating.
Long-time Idylwylde member Anne Bouffard steps in to replace Debbie Szymanski (who slid over to Team Logan), with Zanchetta thoroughly enjoying the raising of the bar after years of more recreational club curling since delivering her first stone, in earnest, in her early thirties.
“Once I retired and got into pensioners curling, that’s when I really started to enjoy it a lot,” said the woman who played in Funspiels with friends who worked at Dennison Mines when she lived in Elliot Lake some thirty years ago. “I’ve always played competitive sports outside of curling so that kind of hit my competitive edge.”
While there are a good number of local pensioner leagues on the go in Sudbury, Zanchetta particularly liked those which pitted her women’s teams against male rinks with a degree of curling pedigree. “You were always being challenged and I enjoyed that a lot more,” she said, noting that just a few changes were truly necessary as she ramped up from club to more competitive curling.
“There was more focus on technique, more focus on strategy, but otherwise, I think it just leads naturally to being competitive if you have that mindset to begin with.”
And when it came to making their way to nationals, Zanchetta acknowledged that sometimes knowing less is better. “There were a lot of very good curlers there; most of them had Scotties necklaces on,” she said with a smile. “I did not realize the pedigree of these curlers.”
“But I am not easily intimidated – and maybe that is my naivety. We exceeded our expectations last year.”
Finally, the Rose Dolan Women’s Fall Classic hosted at the North Grenville Curling Club last week drew plenty of Sudbury and area groomed talent, including with the championship runner-up rink of Brooklyn Ideson. The London-based quartet that includes Lo-Ellen Park graduate Clara Dissanayake at lead were beaten in the final by Sherry Middaugh, managing the best of the showings from teams with northern connections.
The Kira Brunton foursome (Kendra Lilly, Jamie Smith, Lauren Rajala) came up just short of qualifying for the quarter-finals, dropping an 11-7 decision to Zoe Schwaller of Switzerland in the “C” Division qualifier. Team Brunton closed out the event with a record of 3-3, emerging victorious in matchups with Lauren Mann (11-1), Summer St-James (8-7) and Krysta Burns (7-3).
Rounding out the area flavour in eastern Ontario, Team Burns (Laura Forget, Sara Guy, Laura Masters) went 2-3 with wins over Hailey Armstrong (8-1) and Danielle Inglis (7-6).
