SUMMERSIDE, March 28 (CCA)…Nova Scotia, skipped by Colleen Pinkney of Truro, and Ontario, skipped by Bruce Delaney of Ottawa, won the finals of the Canadian Seniors Curling Championships, Saturday at the Silver Fox Curling & Yacht Club.
Pinkney, along with her Truro Curling Club teammates Wendy Currie, Karen Hennigar and Susan Creelman, upended British Columbia’s Kathy Smiley, 6-4.
The win capped a remarkable week for Pinkney, who proved almost unbeatable, finishing the round robin with a 10-1 mark to advance to the final, losing only to Newfoundland/Labrador’s Barbara Pinsent, 6-5 in the final draw of the round robin on Friday.
However, her crew rebounded with a solid, decisive effort in taking the Seniors title, the third for the province since the championship began in 1973. Skip Verda Kempton won twice for the ‘Bluenosers’, way back in 1982 and 1987.
Pinkney, who was an alternate for Nancy McConnery’s Nova Scotia team at the 2009 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Victoria in February, after also having played in the 1988 and 2003 Hearts, traded deuces with Smiley in the second and third ends, before taking another pair in the fifth for a 4-2 lead at the break. A steal of one in the eighth, end, upping the lead to 6-3, virtually put the game on ice for Pinkney, who had also beaten her opponent, 5-3 in the round robin.
New Westminster’s Smiley thus faced her fourth runner-up finish at the Canadian Seniors, following several other ‘tough beats’ in 2004, 2005 and 2007. Smiley, who finished the round robin with a 9-2 mark, had eliminated Manitoba (Lois Fowler of Brandon), 6-5 in last night’s semi-final to advance to today’s final.
Meanwhile, Delaney and his RCN Club team of Rich Bachand, Duncan Jamieson and George Mitchell put away New Brunswick’s Russ Howard, 10-4, the same score in a round robin victory as well.
It was the first Seniors title for the team, which, incidentally, had made one previous Canadian Seniors appearance, that in 2006, also at the Silver Fox in Summerside, when finishing with a 5-6 mark.
Today, though, Delaney went for the jugular early against New Brunswick’s Russ Howard, a two-time world champion, 2006 OIympic gold medallist and runner-up in last year’s Canadian Seniors in Prince Albert, taking a huge four in the first end.
That mountain proved too difficult for Howard to overcome. Delaney held a 5-3 advantage at the fifth end break. Then, after the teams traded singles, Ontario put the game away with a deuce in the eighth end, followed by a steal of a deuce in the ninth, for a 10-4 final verdict.
Delaney and Howard had finished the round robin tied for first with 8-3 records, but Delaney was awarded a bye to Saturday’s final for his round robin victory.
Howard, meanwhile, won the semi-final, 7-5 over Prince Edward Island’s Mel Bernard, on Friday night, to advance to the rematch with Delaney.
It’s a record-equalling 10th Senior men’s title for Ontario, tying Manitoba, since the championship began in 1965, but the first since Bob Turcotte skipped the province to victory in 2000 in Portage la Prairie.