Curler’s sights set on Scotties

[attach]677[/attach]It’s going to be an exciting fall for High Park Curling Club’s Kelly Cochrane.

The 26-year-old curler is hitting the ice, looking to sweep her way into Ontario’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Thunder Bay in January.

But it’s not going to be easy.

Teaming up with skip Jenn Hanna, winner of the 2005 provincials and the national Scott Tournament of Hearts MVP the same year, the first challenge will be the zone play downs.

From there, Cochrane’s new team including Hanna, Hanna’s sister Stephanie and Trish Scharf, will battle other curlers in the regionals, all to get to the provincials.

“We actually haven’t played together as a team, so we haven’t worked out the positions,” Cochrane said. “I’m probably not going to be sweeping because I’m not a very strong sweeper.”

She’ll get her chance to settle into the new squad in Brockville during the Shorty Jenkins Bonspiel, Sept. 17.

“We are going to play in about five spiels and they are practising together in a summer league,” Cochrane said.

But until then, she’ll be hitting the ice in Oakville during their summer league spiels.

“I’m pretty involved in the club up there,” Cochrane said. “A lot of competitive curlers don’t really have a home club because they play so much competitively.”

Why does she love to rock?

“I’ve made a ton of friends across Ontario curling competitively and I’ve made some really close friends curling at High Park,” she said. “It’s a nice community.”

Cochrane comes from a long line of High Park curlers: her parents threw rocks while she was growing up.

“I got into curling when I was 7,” she said. “My parents were curlers of the High Park Curling Club and they have a Little Rocks program there, and when I turned 7 they took me down.

“They thought, I’d like it and I’ve been curling ever since. So I guess I did.”