Photo (L-R) Rod MacDonald, Kevin Champion, Mark O’Rourke, Andrew Robinson, Peter MacDonald

The Rod MacDonald rink edged out the Robert Campbell foursome by a 5-4 score in this evening’s final to repeat as  the Labatt Tankard Provincial Men’s Curling champions. MacDonald, with third Kevin Champion, second Andrew Robinson, and lead Mark O’Rourke, went 5-0 in the round robin to advance directly to the final. Campbell, playing with third Steve Burgess, second Jamie Newson, and lead Rob Doherty, finished round robin play with a 3-2 win-loss record, and had to win a tiebreaker, 8-3 over last year’s runner-up John Likely, followed by the semi-final, 9-6 over Eddie MacKenzie, to advance to the low-scoring final, which was tied at 2-all at the half. A deuce in the seventh end gave MacDonald the extra point needed for the win.

The MacDonald rink will now advance to the Tim Hortons Brier, March 6-14 at the Halifax Metro Centre.

Twelve teams took part in the triple-knockout Labatt Tankard Open Playdowns, with six rinks, five from the Charlottetown Curling Club, and the Tom Fetterly rink from the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club, advancing  to the round robin Final Six championship round.