We are extremely excited to be participating in the first ever women’s Pinty’s All-Star Curling Skins Game! This is the first time the event will add women to the mix and what a great field of Canadian teams that have been selected. We'll take on Team Sweeting and in the other women's semi-final game it will be Team Jones taking on Team Carey.

This year’s event is again hosted in beautiful Banff, Alberta. Our opening match is Friday, January 16th at 6pm MT/8pm ET on TSN.

Skins is a different format with teams often electing for the riskier and more exciting shots as the reward is posted per-end instead of total points. If you couldn't catch us in skins play at last week’s Continental Cup or you need a refresher on curling skins you can read the rules here.

Of course our experience last week has us riding a nice high as we head into the Rockies. Being part of another winning squad at the WFG Continental Cup of Curling was a thrilling experience. We love any opportunity we can get to wear the Maple Leaf and cheer on others representing our country. The fans were incredible and the entire experience in Calgary was very memorable for us.

Rachel also took a few hours during the final game to answer fans directly thanks to the Canadian Curling Association's Twitter page. You can read the Storify here.

Before heading from Calgary to Banff we worked on fine tuning a few things in our game and also participated in a local charity event at The Glencoe Club. Super Spare Silent Auction is a neat event where all four of us were auctioned off to teams to help them in their league games on Monday night. We met a lot of great people and these club member’s generosity supported a great cause with proceeds going to the Boys & Girls Club of Calgary’s Avenue 15 Shelter as part of “Project Angel”.

And just for fun Joanne brought along three items to help her team excel!

Skins, Sparing, Celebrating: Our Alberta Adventure