In this country no team is better than Team Alberta. They are the curling champs. Premature? Maybe, if I were talking about the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. No, the Team Alberta I’m talking about is not skipped by Heather Nedohin, but by Jocelyn Peterman of Red Deer, the National Junior Curling champion.

“We had a lot of really close games, and we knew every game was important so we really hung in there for all of our round robin games, and we had a really great playoffs,” says Team Alberta’s skip.

Last year at the Canada Winter Games, Peterman lost to a different B.C. team 3-1 in the final. A game that was close, then tied at one in the sixth end, and then B.C. scored two points in the seventh end. This year was a different story when they faced B.C. it was payback time, sort of.

“We did lose to B.C. in the Canada games final, so we had a little bit of a B.C. grudge,” jokes Peterman.

This game was tight. The teams were closely matched in the semi-final.

“We were kind of always behind until the ninth end. I made a pretty hard double for four and then that put us ahead and we just kind of held it out through the tenth end.”

Team Alberta’s third, Brittany Tran says the game was intense.

“The semi was definitely more nerve racking. We were down in B.C., like against them, in the Round Robin as well, and we came back.” Tran doesn’t mix words when it comes to her thoughts on her team.

“We’re a very resilient team so we just stuck in there.”

After that, Team Alberta handily won the finals over Team Manitoba 12-6. Now they find themselves in unfamiliar territory, a world stage, where they’ll face global competition in Ostersund, Sweden.

But the team is sticking to their game, and only have one obstacle.

“The only thing really different is getting used to time change.” say Peterman.

Tran agrees. “Once we’re in the game and focused on what’s going on I don’t think (being in Sweden) will really affect us.”

The World Juniors go from March 3-11.

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