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Kayla Skrlik (far left) and her team are chasing a provincial title at the Alberta Scotties this week.Photo from the Team Skrlik Facebook page
Curling

Peace Region curler skipping at first-ever Alberta Scotties

Jan 22, 2020 | 5:24 PM

One of the five players from the Peace Country at the Alberta Scotties in Okotoks this week is skipping at her first-ever Alberta Scotties.

Kayla Skrlik is from Nampa and played out of Falher for many years and is now curling out of Calgary.

She is one year out of junior.

“Oh, it’s so cool! First, it’s awesome to be here and then, second, Okotoks just puts on a great show. In the morning, we had a choir group perform, come and sing and entertain the crowd before we started curling, which was awesome. They have the lights going. They do a really great job of making it feel just like an entire experience.”

She and her team beat Edmonton’s Jodi Vaughn 9-3 in their opening game Wednesday.

Skrlik calls this a confidence-booster.

“I love playing Jodi Vaughn. She’s just an awesome player to play against and her whole team is super-nice. It’s great that we got to play them in the first round. It was a little bit comfortable and then it’s even better that we ended up getting a win.”

Skrlik is working on an accounting degree at the University of Calgary. Her studies include doing an internship with IBM.

“I love IBM. They’re super-supportive of everything I do curling-wise and life-wise. It’s great to be working at IBM. I did an internship at Deloitte in the summer, which was also a great experience.”

The rest of Team Skrlik includes third Lindsay Makichuk, second Brittany Tran, and lead Hope Sunley. Tran played second for the Northwest Territories at last year’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts while Makichuk represented Alberta at the 2010 national championship as the lead on the Val Sweeting’s rink.