The 2018 tournament was the first to use a new 16-team format, featuring representation by all fourteen member associations of Curling Canada, the second-place team from the 2017 tournament (as champion Rachel Homan declined to participate due to her qualification for the 2018 Winter Olympics), and a new wildcard team. As part of this new format, the Bronze medal game was removed from the schedule.[1]
Curling Canada introduced a new 16-team format for both the Tournament of Hearts and Brier for 2018, under which all 14 member associations of Curling Canada were represented in the main field, rather than being limited by a pre-qualifying tournament. The teams were divided into two pools for round robin play, after which the top four teams from each advanced to the Championship Pool. Defending champion Rachel Homan declined to participate as Team Canada in order to prepare for the 2018 Winter Olympics; Michelle Englot's team, who finished as runner-up in the 2017 tournament, participated in her place.[2] The final spot in the tournament was filled by a wildcardplay-in game held on the Friday before the tournament.[3]
The rinks of Hollie Duncan (Ontario), Émilia Gagné (Quebec), and Casey Scheidegger (Alberta) made their Scotties debut; although members of Team Ontario had previous experience at the national women's championship, mostly as alternates. Scotties veteran skip Sherry Anderson (Saskatchewan) led a team of Tournament of Hearts rookies.
Each team that finished fifth through eight in their pool played the team that finished in the same position in the opposite pool for the purpose of determining final tournament ranking. For example, the winner of the game between fifth place teams was ranked ninth place overall, the loser of that game was ranked tenth place, and so on.
All wins and losses earned in the round robin (including results against teams that failed to advance) were carried forward into the Championship Pool. Wins in tiebreaker games were not carried forward.