The sport of Stick Curling is growing by leaps and bounds on Prince Edward Island, with seventeen teams signed up for the third annual Provincial Stick Curling Championship, sponsored by Ferguson Funeral Homes, which will be played February 16-18 at the Cornwall Curling Club. Stick curling differs from the traditional sport in that there are two, not four, curlers per team, who deliver their rocks with specially designed delivery sticks, rather than from a “hack” on the ice. This lets curlers lacking the flexibility for a traditional delivery style remain in the game. In stick curling, the two team members deliver from opposite ends. Sweeping is allowed only from the hog line to the back of the house at the playing end. Two curlers, one from each team, alternately deliver 6 stones each per end, while their teammate skips that end. The roles are then reversed, and the partners deliver the stones back. All games are six ends. For more information on stick curling, including complete rules of play, visit www.stickcurling.ca.
This event was won the first two years by Cornwall’s Ernie Stavert and Sterling Stratton, who will have home ice advantage this time out, but will have to adapt their curling style to a new rule introduced this year, which is adding more excitement to the sport. With this new rule, which extends the “free guard zone” from the hogline to the backline of the house, no stone may be removed from play until the fourth stone of each end.
Stavert says that the new rule is a big improvement to the game, since there are many more rocks in play, resulting in higher scores and more interesting ends.
The seventeen teams have been divided into two pools, and will play a round robin format, beginning 9 am Monday with the second place team from each pool meeting the third place team in the other pool in the quarter-final round, Wednesday at 12:10 pm. The quarter-final winners meet the first place teams in the semi-final round at 1:30, with the two semi-final winners squaring off in the 3:10 pm final.
Results will be available at peicurling.com/stick
The first and second place teams will earn the right to compete in the 5th Annual Canadian Open Stick Curling Championship, April 3-5 in Winnipeg.