The Donald Clarey rink from Montague and the Lorianne Davies foursome from the Cornwall Curling Club will get to play in the third annual national The Dominion Curling Club Championship, November 21-26 in Richmond BC, after winning the finals of the PEI championship this evening at the Western Community Curling Club in Alberton. Clarey was the defending PEI men’s champions, while Davies was last year’s women’s runner-up. Larry Richards is playing third on the Clarey rink again this year, but there are two new players on front end – David Rice and Stephen MacLeod. The Davies rink is unchanged from last year, with Melody Beck at third, Tracy MacDonald at second stone, and Lynda Turnbull in the lead position. The Davies team’s home club was a co-host of the second annual national championship, held in November 2010.
Photo (L-R): Donald Clarey, Larry Richards, David Rice, Steven MacLeod
Clarey edged the Barry Cameron rink from the Silver Fox 8-7 in the men’s final. He was leading 6-3 after six ends, but Cameron, and his team of Corey Montgomery, Roland Richard, and Jim Arsenault, pulled ahead with a four point seventh end. Clarey came back with a deuce in the final end for the win.
File photo (L-R): Loriane Davies, Melody Beck, Tracy MacDonald, Lynda Turnbull
Davies’ game was not a close one. They scored a deuce with hammer in the opening end, and stole a single in the second. Their opposition, the Marie Ford rink from the Crapaud Community Curling Club, got on the board with a single point in the third end, but the Davies rink brought the game to an early conclusion with four points in the fourth, and a stolen deuce in the fifth. Final score: 9-1 Davies. Other members of the runner-up Ford team are Julie Mutch, Vivian Holm, and Heather MacRae.
Teams from all seven PEI curling clubs took part in the men’s event, while five clubs sent entries for the women’s division. Cameron finished atop the men’s round robin standings, with a a 5-1 win-loss record, to advance directly to today’s final. The Clarey rink, along with the Alan Inman foursome from Crapaud were next, at 4-2, and played off in the Sunday afternoon semi-finals between the second and third place teams, with Clarey scoring four points in the eighth end for a 9-5 win. Blaine Hutt from the host club, and Cornwall’s Brock Spence rink ended play at 3-3, while Clair Sweet of the Maple Leaf club in O’Leary, and Charlie Wilkinson from Charlottetown had one win and five losses.
Davies, and Kim Ellsworth of the host Western club, both had 3-1 records following women’s round robin play, but Davies edged the host club rink 8-7 in their round robin encounter, and was awarded first place and a bye to the final. Ellsworth lost 10-2 in the semi-final t0 Ford rink, who went 2-2 in the round robin. Nola Murphy of the Silver Fox, and Val MacLean of Charlottetown ended play at 1-3.
Club champions from all PEI curling clubs are invited to this annual event, which is designed to give regular club curlers across the country an opportunity to compete in provincial and national level competitions. Any profit generated from provincial or national Dominion Curling Club Championship events will be directed to charities including the Canadian Paraplegic Association, as well as developmental curling initiatives in communities across Canada.