Kristy McDonald of the Granite Curling Club in Winnipeg is the number one seed for the 2016 Provincial Scotties Tournament of Hearts which begins next Wednesday in Beausejour.

"It's a new feeling," said McDonald who won the 2014 Provincial Scotties in Virden playing third for Chelsea Carey. "There's a first for everything I guess. It's the first for me as a skip so it's a nice feeling. It's a compliment and a sign of respect from your competition so it feels good."

McDonald says there are benefits to being the top seed.

"It's an advantage because of the draw. The times are good and it's a confidence builder. It might give us that extra skip in our step going out. I'm not too worried about it being a pressure thing. I've played under bigger pressure than that so it's no big deal."

McDonald isn't concerned in the least about having a target on her back.

"I don't get too excited about that stuff anymore. I've been around long enough to not let that bother me."

McDonald, third Kate Cameron, second Leslie Wilson and lead Raunora Westcott lost the 2-2 page playoff game last year in Winkler which was their first curling season together.

The Granite skip feels year two is pretty promising.

"We're a little more refined in what we do and we're a little more organized," McDonald explained. "The first year was sort of lets see what happens kind of thing and have fun and not worry about it. This year we decided to formalize things a little bit more and be a little bit more business like. So it has changed the atmosphere a little bit on the team in the way we do things. We have gotten better this year and hopefully we'll keep getting better."

Kerri Einarson of East St. Paul is the second seed.

Einarson, third Selena Kaatz, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin Maccuish lost the 2014 final in Virden and the 2015 final in Winkler.

Which is totally understandable that they should be the most motivated rink heading into the Scotties.

"You definitely to play well," said Einarson. "It's Selena's hometown so I think that may give us a little bit of an edge having the crowd with us. We just got to play well."

The third seed is Barb Spencer of Assiniboine Memorial.

Spencer was very straight forward with her answer when asked what it's going to be like not seeing Jennifer Jones on the ice at the Sun Gro Centre.

"It's going to be great," said the three-time Scotties champion. "Because she's such a great team. It's still going to be a lot of hard work. There's a lot of good teams in this. It's going to be the team that comes out, plays their best, gets a few breaks - you definitely need Lady Luck on your side. We're hoping that we come out and put a good week together."

Jones, Kaitlyn Lawes, Jill Officer and Dawn McEwen captured the 2015 Provincial Scotties in Winkler and then won the Canadian championship in Moose Jaw.

And that means that Jones, Lawes, Officer and McEwen will be competing as Team Canada at the National Scotties Tournament of Hearts next month in Grande Prairie.

Michelle Montford of Assiniboine Memorial is the fourth seed for the Provincial Scotties and Darcy Robertson of Rossmere is the fifth seed.