Five national Scotties titles and a world silver medal, and yet Kerri Einarson’s rink has ripped up its script: two-time Olympian jocelyn peterman will join the retooled lineup as lead and vice-skip while long-standing personnel move on, exposing tensions between recent success and rapid change.
What Jocelyn Peterman brings to Team Einarson
Jocelyn Peterman arrives with a résumé built on national championships and Olympic appearances. The Gimli, Man., club announced Peterman will throw lead stones and handle vice-skip duties. Peterman lives in Chestermere, Alta., and was a standout skip in juniors before predominantly playing second in her women’s career. She won the 2016 Scotties Tournament of Hearts playing second for Chelsea Carey and was part of the 2018 Canadian Open title team with the same skip. Peterman later joined Jennifer Jones’ team and represented Canada at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. In the most recent Olympic cycle she played on Kaitlyn Lawes’ team and returned to the Winter Olympics in mixed doubles alongside her husband, Brett Gallant; the pair finished fifth with a 4-5 record in Milano Cortina. Peterman said she is excited to join the new group and to learn from her teammates as they prepare for the coming season.
How the Einarson lineup was reshaped after championship results
The move to add Peterman follows a string of high-profile departures and positional shifts inside Team Einarson. Kerri Einarson captured her fifth Scotties title in February and earned silver at the World Women’s Curling Championship just over a week later, yet the team’s core experienced immediate churn. Longtime third Val Sweeting, alternate Krysten Karwacki and coach Reid Carruthers were parted ways with. In the retooled on-ice configuration, Shannon Birchard is moving to third and former lead Karlee Burgess will now throw second stones; both remain with Einarson and will take on heavy sweeping responsibilities when Einarson throws skip stones. The addition of Peterman — who will take the lead and vice role — formalizes that new hierarchy while also pairing Burgess and Peterman as teammates in an upcoming Rock League series match, giving them an early opportunity to build chemistry.
What this consolidation means — and what remains unclear
The sequence of events presents a narrow, evidence-based picture: a champion skip expanding her roster options by recruiting a decorated, multi-role player; a rival rink disbanding and freeing up experienced athletes; and several staff and roster exits that will change in-ice dynamics and coaching oversight. Team Lawes announced a break for skip Kaitlyn Lawes and lead Kristin Gordon, leaving second Jocelyn Peterman and third Selena Njegovan to seek new directions; Njegovan has begun exploring options that could intersect with Einarson’s rebuild. Einarson’s stated aim is to maximize on-ice sweeping and shotmaking by rearranging players’ throwing positions while bringing in Peterman’s experience as a vice and former skip.
Verified fact: the team announcement lists the new positions and the personnel who have left; verified fact: Peterman’s competitive history includes national championships and two Olympic appearances; verified fact: Einarson’s rink secured a fifth Scotties title and a world silver before the roster changes. Uncertainties remain on how the shifted roles will affect communication on the ice, the club’s long-term coaching plan after Carruthers’ departure, and how quickly the new lineup will cohere under competitive pressure. Those outcomes are not yet determinable from the available material.
Accountability demands transparency from the teams involved: clear timelines for coaching arrangements, public confirmation of role responsibilities in the new lineup, and an explanation of the process that led to rapid departures after recent success. Fans and stakeholders will want measurable milestones — preseason lineups, coaching hires, and early-competition results — to evaluate whether the reconfiguration strengthens or destabilizes a championship-calibre program. For now, the concrete change is simple and stark: Jocelyn Peterman will join Team Einarson as lead and vice, inserted into a roster that has just undergone its most consequential shakeup in years.
