Central Plains curler Danica Metcalfe has an opportunity to bring home the U21 National Championship at the end of the month. The Treherne product is the lead for Team Maguet, which is one of the two teams representing Manitoba at the 2022 New Holland Canadian Under-21 Curling Championships in Stratford, Ontario.

Metcalfe says they had to qualify for the provincial championships in Brandon first and after making the finals at that event, they secured a spot in this national tournament. She says it took a lot of teamwork to get to this point.

"Our skip had aged out last year, and it's hard to find a new skip. So, we brought on Lauren Evason as our second and one of the other girls from the team, Morgan Maguet, took on the role of being the skip," Metcalfe explains. "She's done really amazing. It's not easy to just jump to skip as she did."

The lead says she is really proud of everything her team was able to overcome already this year, adding they also had to deal with injuries. Team Maguet participated in multiple bonspiels this season with just three curlers and made the finals at the provincial tournament without their head coach present.

Metcalfe notes they are focused on having a great round-robin in Stratford.

"There are two pools of nine teams, and only the top three from each pool go on to the championship round," says Metcalfe. "So, our first goal is to have a really good round-robin record and make the playoffs. We'll just keep going from there, and hopefully, we'll have a chance to represent Canada."

She says one thing they will have to adjust to early is playing on arena ice, which Metcalfe says some of their team has never done before, however, she is confident that they will be up to the challenge. Metcalfe notes they have proved their resilience over and over this season, which gives her total faith in what she and her teammates can accomplish.

The lead says this will be her last season competing at the U21 level, and she hopes to cap it off with a bang from March 25-April 1 in Stratford.