Chelsea Carey keeps thoughts to herself on Karlee Burgess’s departure

Chelsea Carey isn’t ready to talk about her feelings surrounding Karlee Burgess’s decision to leave her team, and the two-time national champion skip tells Sportsnet she may never speak publicly about it. 

“I’m not there yet — there’s still a few things that need to happen before I’m going to be prepared to say anything, if I’m even ready then,” says Carey. 

Burgess’s decision to part ways with Team Carey, announced on Jan. 2, was an enormous blow to the year ahead for the veteran skip, second Emily Zacharias and lead Lauren Lenentine. With the player change, the team loses its pre-qualified status for both the 2025 Scotties Tournament Heart and the 2025 Olympic Trials, so Carey’s squad is suddenly out. 

The move also comes well after the registration deadline for provincial playdowns, which start this week, so Carey, Zacharias and Lenentine won’t be able to play to earn their way to the national championship that opens Feb. 14 in Thunder Bay, Ont.  

Burgess, Zacharias and Lenentine earned a silver medal at the 2023 and 2024 Scotties with Jennifer Jones at the helm, and then following Jones’ retirement from four-person curling, Carey, a two-time Grand Slam champion and two-time Olympic Trials silver medallist, took over as the team’s skip. But as per Curling Canada’s rules, the team needs to retain three of its four original members to retain its pre-qualified status, and since Jones already left, Burgess’ departure meant Team Carey no longer had Scotties and Trials berths. 

Team Carey reached out to Curling Canada to see if there was anything that could be done to keep the team’s hopes alive. “We talked to them, and there was no way to save it,” Carey says. 

Less than 24 hours after Team Carey released a statement that Burgess was leaving to pursue another opportunity, Team Einarson — the four-time Scotties champs — announced Burgess was joining forces with them, thanks to an injury exemption granted by Curling Canada. Burgess will play second, replacing Shannon Birchard, who’s out with a knee injury. 

Carey, 40, says a team announcement on her end is coming, but she’s not sure when. She could get picked up by another team as an alternate, but the national championship is less than a month away. “I doubt that’s going to happen — you never know,” she says. “But it’s pretty late in the process, so I would think not.” 

The Alberta women’s playdowns open Wednesday to determine who’ll represent the province at the 2025 Scotties. 

“I’ll probably end up following it even though I wish I could turn that off, but I can’t,” says Carey, who won Alberta provincials in both 2019 and 2016, and led those teams to Scotties titles. “That’s just how I am.” 

More from Sportsnet

Karlee Burgess bets on herself, looks forward to fresh start with Einarson

Undefeated Homan tops Einarson to earn playoff berth at WFG Masters