KENORA — Nine-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts skip Krista McCarville is the favourite to earn a 10th trip to the national women's curling championship.
She showed why in her Northern Ontario provincial playdown debut on Wednesday.
Team McCarville needed just five ends to complete a 12-0 shutout over Fort Frances' Hailey Beaudry to open the championship at 1-0.
McCarville, lead Sarah Potts, second Ashley Sippala and third Kendra Lilly finished second at last year's Scotties Tournament of Hearts at Fort William Gardens.
They weren't the only Thunder Bay team to find success on Day 1 of action.
On the men's side, Trevor Bonot made up for losing Sunday's Tbaytel Major League of Curling final to Brian Adams, Jr., returning the favour on Wednesday with an 8-1 triumph.
The men's competition, featuring 11 teams, is using a triple knockout format. The women are playing a round-robin event.
In earlier action, Kenora's Michael Szajewski downed Thunder Bay's Dallas Burgess 7-4.
In other Draw 2 play, Thunder Bay's Kory Carr is taking on Sudbury's Sandy MacEwan and Sudbury's Krysta Burns is battling with Thunder Bay's Nicole-Westlund Stewart.
