(By MONTY MOSHER Sports Reporter)
Halifax’s Colleen Jones made a triumphant return to the national curling stage Saturday in Digby.
The six-time Canadian women’s curling champion out of the Mayflower Curling Club began her senior national curling career with an 8-4 win over June Moyaert of P.E.I.
Jones, whose curling season was left in doubt by a medical emergency in December, and her team of Nancy Delahunt, Marsha Sobey and Sally Saunders opened up a tight game with a deuce in the fifth end, a theft of two in the sixth and another deuce in the eighth for an 8-3 lead.
In other women’s games, it was Alberta 6 Newfoundland and Labrador 3, Manitoba 6 New Brunswick 5, B.C. 6 Yukon/Northwest Territories 3, Saskatchewan 5 Northern Ontario 4 and Ontario 6 Quebec 4.
In the opening men’s draw later Saturday, Scott Saunders, Jones’s husband, defeated P.E.I.’s Bill Hope 6-3. The Saunders rink, with Curt Palmer, Dave Slauenwhite and Glenn Josephson on the ice, scored three points in the eighth end and a deuce in the 10th.
Ontario doubled Quebec 12-6, Yukon/Northwest Territories whipped B.C. 8-3, Alberta edged Newfoundland and Labrador 5-4, Manitoba downed New Brunswick 7-3 and Saskatchewan nipped Northern Ontario 5-4.
The round robin ends Thursday night and finals are Saturday afternoon. This year’s winners will represent Canada at the 2012 world senior championships.