Cheryl Bernard and her Calgary team will represent Canada at the Olympic Games tournament in February at Vancouver.

Bernard and her team of Susan O'Connor, Carolyn Darbyshire and Cori Bartel defeated defending Olympian Shannon Kleibrink, also of Calgary, 7-6 in the women's final in the Tim Hortons Canadian Curling Trials on Saturday night at Edmonton's Rexall Place.

As the Trials winner, Bernard will receive $180,000 over a 30-month (2 1/2 years) period from Sport Canada as A-carded athletes.

In addition, for the first time in Trials history, the Canadian Curling Association, in partnership with the Edmonton host committee, have allocated $50,000 from the Trials net profit to be directed to the team, to help defray Olympic-related costs for both the team and family members, from accommodation to tickets to training and competition expenses.

As two of the top four seeds at the Trials, the Bernard and Kleibrink teams have also received $40,000 each from Own the Podium 2010, $30,000 of which was to be directed to training and competition expenses, $10,000 to sport science and sports medicine expenses.

Canada has won three medals in women's curling at the last three Olympic Winter Games.  Sandra Schmirler won gold in 1998 in Nagano, Japan; Kelley Law won bronze in 2002 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA and Kleibrink won bronze in 2006 in Torino, Italy.