SALMON ARM, BC, February 6 (CCA)…Ontario (Rachel Homan of Ottawa) and Northern Ontario (Dylan Johnston of Thunder Bay) have earned berths into the women’s and men’s finals, respectively, on Sunday at the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors.
On the men’s side, Northern Ontario and Prince Edward Island (Brett Gallant of Charlottetown) finished tied for first with 9-3 records. Northern Ontario dropped its final game, 6-5 to Newfoundland and Labrador, giving up a steal in the 10th, while Prince Edward Island coasted to a 13-5 win over Northwest Territories.
However, since Northern Ontario had edged Prince Edward Island, 9-8 during the round robin, it was placed first and goes directly to Sunday’s final at 4:00 pm PT/8:00 pm AT, live on TSN. Northern Ontario has won four junior men’s titles since 1950, the last by Jeff Currie in 1996 in Edmonton.
Prince Edward Island advances to Saturday’s semi-final at 7:30 pm PT (11:30 pm Atlantic), to meet Alberta (Kevin Yablonski of Calgary), which finished third with an 8-4 mark after losing to Nova Scotia, 8-7, giving up three in the 10th end.
On the women’s side, Ontario defeated Saskatchewan, 9-2, in the final draw of the round robin on Friday evening to finish with an overall record of 10-2. Sunday’s final will be played at 11:30 am PT/3:30 pm AT, live on TSN, as Homan tries to win just a third junior women’s title for Ontario since the championship began in 1971, but the first since 1993, when the Canadian title was won by Kim Gellard in Trois-Rivières.
Alberta (Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge), which dropped a 9-8 decision to Nova Scotia, giving up a steal of two in the 10th end, finished second with a 9-3 mark. Alberta heads to the semi-final on Saturday at 3:30 pm PT/7:30 pm AT to play defending champion Manitoba (Kaitlyn Lawes of Winnipeg), which finished third with an 8-4 record.
Behind the three leaders on the women’s side came Prince Edward Island (Erin Carmody of Summerside), 7-5; Quebec (Kristen Richard of Lachine), Northern Ontario (Vanessa Maloney of Sudbury) and British Columbia (Kelly Shimizu of Richmond), all at 6-6; Nova Scotia (Marie Christianson of Halifax), New Brunswick (Ashley Howard of Moncton), Yukon (Sarah Koltun of Whitehorse) and Saskatchewan (Brooklyn Lemon of Regina), all at 5-7; followed by Newfoundland and Labrador (Erin Porter of St. John’s) at 4-8 and Northwest Territories (Kate Maksymowich of Yellowknife) at 2-10.
The balance of the men’s standings were as follows: New Brunswick (Steve Burgess of Fredericton), 7-5; Ontario (Bowie Abbis-Mills of Waterloo), British Columbia (Bryan Kedziora of Maple Ridge), Quebec (Andrew Leigh of Lachine), Manitoba (Sam Good of Winnipeg), Saskatchewan (Mike Armstrong of Saskatoon) and Newfoundland and Labrador (Kelly Schuh of St. John’s), all at 6-6; followed by Nova Scotia (Paul Dexter of St. Andrews) at 4-8, Yukon (Thomas Scoffin of Whitehorse) at 3-9 and Northwest Territories (Colin Miller of Yellowknife) at 2-10.