The Cornwall Curling Club, sporting a brand new clubhouse, will host the Atlantic University Curling Championships from January 13-15, 2012, with five men’s teams, and an equal number of women’s rinks taking part. This event will use a double knockout draw, with four teams — the A and B side winners from both the men’s and women’s events, representing the Atlantic region at the CIS/CCA University Championships from March 14-18 in Welland, Ontario.

The teams will practice on Friday, January 13, beginning at 5 pm, with play getting underway on Saturday the 14th, with draws at 9 am and 2 and 7 pm, and wrapping up on Sunday the 15th, with the A finals at 9 am and the B finals at 2 pm. All games in the competititon are 10 ends. The event is organized by Curl Atlantic, the PEI Curling Association, and the Cornwall Curling Club.

Saint Mary’s University won both the Atlantic men’s and women’s titles last year. The SMU women’s team are back with three of the same members, including skip Sarah Rhyno, and third Anita Casey, from Seven Mile Bay PEI, while Colten Steele moves up from second to skip the men’s team this year, which also retains three of last year’s players.

The 2011 CIS/CCA Canadian men’s champions, the Memorial University rink skipped by Colin Thomas, are also in the Atlantic event this year. Last year they gained entry to the nationals in St. John’s as the host team entry, bypassing the Atlantic event. Wilfred Laurier, skipped by Laura Crocker, won the national women’s title last year.

These MUN and Laurier teams will compete as Team Canada in the Karuizawa International Curling Championships in Japan January 25-30, while the winning teams from this year’s CIS/CCA championships will represent Canada at the FISU Winter Universiade in Maribor, Slovenia, January 30-Feb. 9, 2013.

UPEI is represented at this year’s Atlantic event by last year’s women’s runner-up, Sarah Fullerton, and her rink of Michelle McQuaid, Hillary Thompson, and Whitney Young, along with former Canadian Junior champion Brett Gallant, whose team in this event includes long-time teammate Alex MacFadyen at third, and Sam Ramsay and Connor MacPhee on the front end. Fullerton, McQuaid, and Thompson were skip, third, and lead respectively on this year’s provincial junior womens championship rink, while Ramsay and MacPhee were skip and second on the junior men’s runner-up team.

Other entries include the Dalhousie team skipped by Adam Casey (Anita’s brother), who were the Atlantic men’s runner-up last year, along with the St. Fx women’s entry skipped by Taylor Clarke, and the Memorial women’s team captained by Erin Porter. The Acadia men’s team is skipped by Robert Mayhew, and coached by 1977 World Junior curling champ and PEI sports and curling hall of fame member Alan Mayhew, while the Lindsay Doucet-skipped Acadia women’s team rounds out the entries.

Draw team rosters, and live results are available at peicurling.com/aucc and at livecurling.com.