Five teams remain undefeated following opening day round robin play at the fourth annual Ferguson Funeral Homes Provincial Stick Curling Championship at the Crapaud Community Curling Club.
In the five team women’s division, the Shirley Lank/Ruth Walsh duo from Cornwall and Crapaud are 2-0, while tbe Ruth Stavert/Gloria Clarke team from Cornwall are 1-0. In the eleven team men’s and mixed division, the Edwin Walker/Clifford Pickets team from Summerside, and the Ernie Stavert/Sterling Stratton duo from Cornwall and Charlottetown, who won the event the first two years, are 3-0, while the Philip Curley/Sterling Higginbotham pair from Montague are 2-0. The defending champion Walter Callaghan/John Vincent team from the Western Community Curling Club in Alberton are 2-1, after dropping a 5-3 decision to Cornwall’s Grant Laird/Vernon Chowan rink.
In stick curling there are two curlers per team, who deliver their rocks with delivery sticks, with each team member delivering 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.
Play continues on Tuesday, with round robin draws at 10 and 11:15 am, and 12:45, 2, and 3:45 pm. The playoff round goes Wednesday, with the quarter-finals for the Men’s and Mixed division and the semi-final for the women’s section going at 10 am, the Men’s and Mixed semi going at noon, and the finals in both divisons, along with the consolation final for the Men’s and Mixed division going at 2 pm.
The winning and runner-up rinks earn the right to compete in the 2010 Canadian Stick Curling Championship, April 9-11 at the Fort Garry Curling Club in Winnipeg.