Team Crough is eyeing some women's curling events next month in St. Albert and Airdrie on the heels of their time at the Alberta Scotties in Grande Prairie.
While they won't be representing the province at the Scotties in February, Cochrane's Julianna MacKenzie said Team Crough has learned a great deal by playing against Alberta's best.
"The curling was fantastic," Team Crough's lead said. "It was a really good atmosphere to be playing in a venue like that. The calibre of play was so high."
The team finished in the fifth slot with two wins and five losses, tying with the Pierce and Sturmay rinks with 1.901 points. Team Walker will be moving on to the Scotties in Thunder Bay, Ont.
"As the youngest team going in there, we wanted to go in and take away all the learning experience that we could to move forward on those losses."
MacKenzie pointed to the added energy, noise and distractions fans in the stands can have on play as well as the meticulous differences quality arena ice can make on shots.
"The big teams," she said. "They are going to be able to see all the angles and make more high difficulty shots. We have to be more careful where we leave our rocks."
While Team Crough — which is skip Elysa Crough, second Kim Bonneau, third Quinn Prodaniuk, MacKenzie and coach Mark Johnson — has faced most of these teams before, MacKenzie said it's always a good experience.
"It was good to play some elite teams and see how we compare and where we need to be to beat them in the future."
Following these season-finishing events next month, MacKenzie said she'll keep up on her off-season training, which includes strength and cardio training four times a week.
She said she may even take a swing at joining a softball team.
"I spared a couple of times with a friend's team," she said. "That was fun."
