Next month, Team Plett, Airdrie's U18 girl's curling team will be heading to Timmins, Ontario to defend their gold national championship title, representing their province as Team Alberta, at the 2023 U18 Curling Championships on February 5-11, as presented by Curling Canada. 

However, Team Plett's trip to the national championships comes off of a remarkable win at the provincial level as they won the 2023 Curling Alberta Optimist International U18 Girl's Provincial Champions this past weekend. The team's coach, Blair Lenton, said that it is always an honour to represent Alberta, more so since this is the second time the team has won the title.

"The girls have worked really hard this year and had a lot of success last year. We qualified earlier in late November to represent Alberta in [the] Canada Winter Games in PEI. That's coming up after U18 Canadian [national competition]," he said. "It's an absolute privilege to coach these young athletes and watch them grow as they continue to be successful.

Team Plett's skip, Myla Plett said that while the competition over the weekend was bout winning, it was also about the team bonding together.

"Communication is a big part of curling and I think communication is the key to having a good, successful team. Our team just really tries to train for that and we've really developed it over the years."

While the team is already focused on next month's national championship, Lenton said that the team still has quite a busy schedule before the end of the month, including various qualifying games and an important provincial game before they head to Ontario. He is also very aware that the U18 Curling Championships will be a gathering of the best of the best in sport.

"We've been there once before and we were fortunate enough to win gold last year, and we want to defend our title. So, they're going to be looking at us, they know us now and we have to be ready to fight back and make sure that we don't play any different than we've been playing all year."

Plett echoes her coach's sentiment, saying that the bar has been set high, but the team is ready to answer the call this year as well and come home with yet another gold. The skip of the team said she grew up watching her sisters play curling, and when she began grade one, she too would get out on the ice and immerse herself in the sport.

Team Plett's coach said that the team he has fostered and nurtured is the whole package, which he believes is a winning combination.

"They're just really great friends, they have a ton of fun and they're great communicators," he said. " There's not just one thing; it takes a lot of different things that make this team great and they just have everything right now."

Team Plett will also be joined by the U18 boy's team, Team Hiebert Curling who will also represent Team Alberta at next month's national curling competition. 

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