The provincial women’s championship has kicked off at the Cornwall Curling Club.

The P.E.I. women’s championship always generates a lot of interest in the Island’s curling world and fans said they have a lot of reasons to be paying attention this year.

“There’s a great crowd. A lot of new faces who we’ve never seen around the curling rinks,” said Rob Roberts, one of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts promoters. “I think it’s powered by how well the O’Rourke team did last year.”

One year ago, Kathy O’Rourke and her rink won the provincial championship then grabbed the attention of the whole country at the national Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

The O’Rourke rink became the first P.E.I. team to make it to the final of the Scotties, then lost a close game to the pre-tournament favourite Jennifer Jones.

Since then, their faces have been all over posters promoting the 2011 Scotties, which Charlottetown is hosting.

But in order to compete at this year’s Scotties national they’ll first have to get by five other teams at the provincial championship.

Photo: Fan favourite Kathy O’Rourke, pictured, was defeated by veteran curler Suzanne Birt
on Friday evening at the P.E.I. Women’s Championship. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)