The Dominion Curling Club Championship, sponsored by The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, is a new event which gives regular club curlers across the country an opportunity to compete in provincial and national level competitions. Club curlers are those who enjoy the sport recreationally, supporting club leagues on a regular basis each curling season. Now, these teams will have an opportunity to demonstrate their skill against other curling clubs in their province and country.
Here on PEI, club-level events are being held at each of the seven curling clubs, to pick men’s and women’s club champions. Winners are to be declared by February 28th, and will compete in the Provincial Dominion Curling Club Championship, March 13-15 at the Crapaud Community Curling Club. This event replaces the Intermediate championship that was held in previous years. Entry fee for the provincial event is $30 per player. The Dominion Provincial Club Championship will be a round robin with eight end games, and will follow the PEI Curling Association’s Rules of Play. Ties will be decided by a full extra end. Upon completion of the round robin, the top three teams will advance to the playoff round, with the second-place team playing the third-place team in the semi-final, and the semi-final winner playing the first-place team in the final. Any profit generated from provincial or national Dominion Curling Club Championship events will be directed to charities including the Canadian Paraplegic Association, as well as developmental curling initiatives in communities across Canada.
The winners from the PEI championship will advance to the national event, at the St. George’s Golf and Country Club in Etobicoke Ontario in November.
Here are the eligibility requirements for The Dominion Provincial Club Championship:
1-Teams are to be made up from paid members from one PEI curling club. One women’s and one men’s team may be sent from each PEI curling club. Clubs have sole responsibility for deciding how to choose their representatives.
2-Replacement players must come from the same club, can play any position but skip, and cannot play any position higher than the position being replaced.
3-Clubs are responsible to ensure that eligibility criteria are met.
4-The PEI Curling Association has the sole authority to accept or reject any entry. On the national level, The Dominion reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to exclude any team that violates the intent and spirit of the competition. The rules of the national event may differ slightly from the provincial rules, and will be in effect for the national event.
5-The PEI event is open to men’s and women’s teams of four curlers from the same curling club. Teams may include no more than one player who has competed in the final four of a PEI Curling Association Provincial Championship event in the current and previous two seasons, or has competed in a championship outside the province, in the current and previous two seasons, as a result of winning a PEICA championship event.
6. Curlers from the former Intermediate championship and the Stick curling championship, and from championships not conducted by the PEICA, may compete, regardless of placement in those events, and provided that all team members belong to the same curling club.
7. Each team will be allowed a maximum of 2 players between the ages of 15 and 20, as of December 31st of the year prior to the Canadian championship. Curlers under the age of 15 are not eligible to compete.
The Charlottetown Curling Club team of Robyn and Rebecca Jean MacPhee, Shelley Muzika and Tammi Lowther are the 2009 Scotties Tournament of Hearts Provincial Women’s Curling Champions. Monday night at the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club they beat their clubmates the Kim Dolan foursome by a 9-7 score to advance to the national Scotties, Feb. 21-March 1st in Victoria BC.
Dolan had hammer in the opening end, and the teams matched scores in the first six ends, taking singles and a pair of deuces. MacPhee took the lead with a seventh-end triple. Dolan responded with a deuce in the eighth, and MacPhee blanked the ninth for the important last rock advantage coming home. A single in the 10th gave her the win. Kathy O’Rourke, Nancy Cameron, and Trisha Affleck round out the runner-up Dolan foursome.
MacPhee eliminated her former teammate and three-time defending champion Suzanne Birt in the afternoon semi-final, winning 10-4, aided by a steal of four points in the third end when Birt was heavy on a draw with her last rock. All three Charlottetown teams had 3-1 win-loss records in the round robin. The other teams in the five-team field were from the Cornwall Curling Club, with Donna Butler finishing at 3-1, and Karen Currie 0-4.
Day one is over at the Provincial Masters Curling Championships, for curlers aged 60 and over, being played at the Maple Leaf Curling Club in O’Leary. Nine men’s teams are playing a double-knockout format, while the four women’s rinks are playing a round robin with a two game championship round.
In the men’s division, four teams are undefeated, with five-time champion Lou Nowlan from Summerside at 2-0, and defending champion Bob MacWilliams from Cornwall, his clubmate and reigning stick curling champion Sterling Stratton, and John Holmes from the Silver Fox all with 1-0 win-loss records. Nowlan downed Father Art Pendergast and his Western Community Curling Club team 9-1 in his opener, and Silver Fox clubmate Louis Walsh 8-1, while MacWilliams edged Bob Maynard of the Fox 8-7, Holmes beat Alfred (Chick) Morrison and his combined Charlottetown/Cornwall rink 5-3, and Stratton took a six ender in his 12-2 routing of Alberton’s Leslie Hardy. In the B section, Hardy beat Pendergast 7-3.
In the women’s section, Summerside’s Jeanne Duffenais is off to a good start in her quest for a sixth consecutive Masters title, with a decisive 11-2 victory over Wanda Collings of Alberton, stealing five points in the seventh end, followed up by a 7-2 win over Cornwall’s Myrna Sanderson foursome. In other games, Diane MacKay beat Cornwall clubmate Sanderson 9-2, and Collings edged MacKay 7-6 in an extra end.
Play continues Tuesday with the women’s round robin wrapping up in the 9 am morning draw, and the playoff game between the second and third place team happening at 3 pm. The women’s final between the winner of that game and the first place finisher from the round robin goes Wednesday at 1 pm. The men play at 9 am, noon, and 3 pm on Tuesday, with the final set for Thursday at 1 pm. If the same team wins both A and B divisions in the double-knockout, the champion could be declared in the 1 pm Wednesday draw.
The winners and runners-up from both men’s and women’s divisions will advance to the Maritime Masters Championships, March 1-5, 2009 at the Mayflower Curling Club in Halifax.
MacPhee faces Dolan in tonight’s final
JASON SIMMONDS -The Journal Pioneer
SUMMERSIDE — There will be a new P.E.I. women’s curling champion in 2009.
Robyn MacPhee of the Charlottetown Curling Club eliminated clubmate Suzanne Birt, who won the last three P.E.I. Scotties Tournament of Hearts, in Monday afternoon’s semifinal at the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club. The final score was 10-4.
Click to read this story in today’s Journal-Pioneer.
Suzanne Birt, who has won five of the last six PEI Scotties Tournament of Hearts will not be in this year’s final against Charlottetown clubmate Kim Dolan. In this afternoon’s semi-final at the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club, Birt lost 10-4 to her former teammate Robyn MacPhee. A steal of four in the third gave the MacPhee foursome a 7-3 lead after five ends of play. Birt took a single in the sixth, but MacPhee came back with a deuce in the seventh and a stolen single in the eighth to bring the game to put the game out of reach.
Other members of the MacPhee rink are Robyn’s sister Rebecca Jean, along with Shelly Muzika and Tammi Lowther. Shelly Bradley, Leslie MacDougall, and Stefanie Clark, with coach Charlie Sullivan, round out team Birt.
Tonight’s MacPhee vs Dolan final is at 7 pm. Dolan’s lineup includes Kathy O’Rourke, Nancy Cameron, and Tricia Affleck. Dolan has won three PEI women’s championships playing third for Rebecca Jean MacPhee, and has skipped five winners herself. Robyn MacPhee is in her first year as skip, but was third for Birt when she won in 2007 and 2008, and played second for Rebecca Jean in 2005, and for Birt on the 2003 championship team.
Tonight’s winner will advance to the national Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Feb. 21st to March 1st in Victoria BC.
JASON SIMMONDS – The Journal Pioneer
SUMMERSIDE — One finalist has been determined for the P.E.I. Scotties Tournament of Hearts at the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club.
Kim Dolan’s Charlottetown Curling Club rink beat clubmate Suzanne Birt 10-7 in the one vs. two Page playoff game Sunday night to earn a berth in tonight’s P.E.I. women’s curling championship final at 7.
Click to read this story in today’s Journal-Pioneer
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