Round robin play wrapped up on Tuesday afternoon at the Ferguson Funeral Homes Provincial Stick Curling Championships at the Crapaud Community Curling Club, with the top three teams from each round robin pool advancing to the Wednesday championship round. Round robin records, results against each other, and points,  in that order, were used to determine the final round robin standings. In the two pool Men’s and Mixed division, the Grant Laird/Vernon Chowan twosome from Cornwall finished in first place in the A pool with a 4-1 win-loss record, followed by Philip Curley and Sterling Higginbotham from Montague in second place at 3-2, and the defending champion Walter Callaghan/John Vincent duo from Alberton’s Western Community club in third  position, also at 3-2. In the B pool, the Edwin Walker/Clifford Picketts team from the Silver Fox were first at 4-1, followed by the Ernie Stavert/Sterling Stratton pair from Cornwall and Charlottetown, who won the event its first two years, also at 4-1. Third place honours went to the Gordie MacDonald/Floyd Stewart rink from Montague.

In quarter-final play between second and third place teams Wednesday morning at 10, Stavert/Stratton will face Callaghan/Vincent, while  Curley/Higginbotham will take on MacDonald/Stewart.  The winners of these games will take on the first place teams in the noon semi-finals, with the winners of these games playing in the final at 2 pm, and the losers playing in the consolation final, also at 2 pm.

The Shirley Lank/Ruth Walsh team from Cornwall and Crapaud finished first in the women’s round robin, with a 3-1 win-loss record. Ruth Stavert and Gloria Clarke from Cornwall were second, also at 3-1, while  Audrey Callaghan and Gail Jenkins from the Western Community and Charlottetown clubs were third at 2-2.

Stavert/Clarke take on Callaghan/Jenkins in the semi-final at 1o am Wednesday, with the winner facing Lank/Walsh in the final 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. 

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.

Eleven men’s and mixed teams, and five women’s rinks took part in this fourth annual PEI curling stick championship.