The 2012 Canadian Mixed gets underway on Saturday Nov. 12 at the Sudbury Curling Club in Ontario, and the PEI representatives will be arriving at the event from both PEI and Alberta, as Erin Carmody, third on the Brett Gallant rink, who defeated the Canadian champion Robert Campbell rink at the PEI Mixed in March, is now attending school in Calgary, and curling with the Crystal Webster rink. Besides Gallant, a six-time PEI junior winner and former Canadian Junior champion and World Junior silver medallist, and Carmody, a three-time PEI Junior champ and 2010 PEI Scotties winner and Canadian women’s championship silver medallist, and winner of the Sandra Schmirler award for Most Valuable Player at the event, the team includes Erin’s younger brother Anson at second, who also played second on five of Gallant’s winning Junior teams, and lead Michelle Mackie, who is a former Junior teammate of Erin’s, and played third on the Meaghan Hughes rink when they won the PEI Junior championship in 2003.
Photo (L-R): Brett Gallant, Erin Carmody, Anson Carmody, Michelle Mackie
At the Provincial Mixed, the Gallant foursome went undefeated, beating the Canadian champions in both the A and B finals of the double-knockout event, by 10-8 and 5-4 scores respectively.
PEI opens play Saturday at 11 am PE time against Manitoba’s Sean Grassie rink, and at 3:30 pm takes on a tough Ontario rink, skipped by Mark Homan of Ottawa, with his sister Rachel Homan, last year’s Ontario women’s championship skip and a former Canadian Junior champion and World silver medallist at third.
At 8 pm Atlantic they face Team Alberta, skipped by Kurt Balderston.
Round robin play continues through the 10 am AST draw on Friday November 18, with the semis, depending on tiebreakers, going either that evening at 8, or 10 am on Saturday the 19th, and the final taking place Saturday at 2:30 pm PEI time.
Prince Edward Island has won three Canadian Mixed championships to-date, with Brett’s father Peter skipping and his mother Kathie playing third on the 1987 championship team, and Robert Campbell skipping winning rinks in 1989 and 2011.
PEI’s John Likely holds the record for most Canadian Mixed appearances as skip, 9, and most games won, 55.
This year for the first time, 14 teams representing all 10 provinces plus Northern Ontario, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon, will compete. The bottom four teams (11th-14th) from this year’s competition will meet next year in early November in a double knockout competition to determine which two of these teams will then go on to the 2013 Canadian Mixed in Montreal.
Two members of the winning team from this year’s Canadian Mixed will then represent Canada at the 2012 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, April 23-29 in Erzurum, Turkey.