The host club rink of skip Alex Matters, who calls the game but throws third stones, Chris Gallant, who throws fourth stones,  second Kyle Holland, and lead Andrew Cameron, with coaches Peter Gallant and Derrick Cameron, edged their clubmates, the Sam Ramsay rink by a 7-6 extra end score this afternoon in the first game of the best of three final between these two teams in the Pepsi Provincial Junior Men’s Curling Championships at the Charlottetown Curling Club. Other members of the Ramsay rink are Matthew Nabuurs, Connor MacPhee, and Shawn Pitre, with coach Rob Roberts.

Photo (L-R): Chris Gallant, Andrew Cameron, Kyle Holland from the Alex Matters rink

The second men’s final, along with the sudden death junior women’s championship game between Sarah Fullerton of the Charlottetown and Cornwall clubs, and Amanda MacLean of the Cornwall and Maple Leaf clubs, go Monday at 10 am, with the third men’s final, if needed, going Monday at 2:30 pm. The winning teams will advance to the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors, February 4-12, 2012, in Napanee Ontario.

The teams have now been determined for the Pepsi Provincial Junior Women’s sudden death final game, scheduled for 10 am on Monday at the Charlottetown Curling Club, following the completion of double round play this morning, with the top two teams advancing to the final. The Amanda MacLean rink, who curl out of the Cornwall and Maple Leaf clubs, defeated the Emily Keen team from Charlottetown to finish the round robin in second place, with a 4-2 win-loss record, while the two-time defending champion Sarah Fullerton rink from Charlottetown and Cornwall stole a triple in the extra end in an exciting 8-5 come-from-behind victory over Cornwall’s Veronica Smith rink, to grab first place with a 5-1 record.

Photo (L-R) Hillary Thompson, Sarah Fullerton, Sara MacRae

The Smith rink, which includes Fullerton’s sister Katie at third, had beaten the Fullerton foursome earlier in the competition, and led this game 5-3 after eight ends of play. Fullerton took a single in the 9th, and forced the extra by stealing a point in ten.

The winner of Monday’s final between Fullerton and MacLean will advance to the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors, February 4-12, 2012, in Napanee Ontario.

(CCA) The Road to Red Deer continues with an update from Central Canada.

Quebec:

Marie-France Larouche (Photo Michael Burns)

The eight-team field is now set for the 2012 Quebec Scotties Tournament of Hearts, which will determine the women’s provincial curling champions who will travel to Red Deer and the national Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Marie-France Larouche, who has represented Quebec at six national Scotties shootouts, will be the prohibitive favourite at the provincial final which will be played at the Club de Curling Kenogami in Jonquiere, Quebec, from January 25-29.

Ontario:

Sherry Middaugh (Photo Michael Burns)

Unlike the Brier, the province of Ontario sends only one entry to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. As a result, there are play-downs in Northern Ontario and play-downs in Southern Ontario which precede a joint championship. This year’s Ontario Scotties Tournament of Hearts will be held at the Kenora Curling Club from January 23-29. Ten teams will play a round-robin in advance of a four-team page playoff schedule.

The four Northern Ontario teams advancing to Kenora were determined at the Northern Ontario provincial finals in Copper Cliff over the weekend of December 8-11. Krista McCarville, at 29 years of age, has been to four national Scotties tilts and will be among the favourites in Kenora.

Southern Ontario will send four teams to Kenora through a zone and regional playdown process. Defending Ontario champion Rachel Homan and her Ottawa Curling Club team of Emma Miskew, Alison Kreviazuk and Lisa Weagle have survived zone play and will face regional competition in early January. Seven-time Scotties participant Sherry Middaugh and her Coldwater & District Curling Club team of Jo-Ann Rizzo, Lee Merklinger and Leigh Armstrong have had a tremendous year on tour and should be a force in regional play.

The last 2 entries into the Kenora field will be decided at the Scotties Hearts Challenge Round to be held at the Oshawa Curling Club over the weekend of January 13-15.

Click for full story at the CCA website.

Click here for an album of photos from the Pepsi Provincial Juniors curling championship, which continues through Monday at the Charlottetown Curling Club.

The Sarah Fullerton foursome downed the Emily Keen rink 8-2 to start the Pepsi provincial junior curling championships with a 1-0 record at the Charlottetown Curling Club Thursday morning.

The Fullerton rink, consisting of skip Sarah Fullerton, mate Michelle McQuaid, second Sara MacRae and lead Hillary Thompson, is a two-time defending champion and will face the Veronica Smith rink in their next match at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

Photo: Skip Sarah Fullerton, right, discusses a shot with mate Michelle McQuaid during the rink’s first game of the Pepsi provincial junior curling championships Thursday morning at the Charlottetown Curling Club.

The tournament, being hosted at the CCC, features six junior men’s and four junior women’s teams from five Island curling clubs.

Click for full story in The Guardian

The Pepsi Provincial Junior Curling Championships, for curlers age 20 and under, get underway this morning at the Charlottetown Curling Club, with six junior men’s and four junior women’s teams from five Island curling clubs taking part, including Charlottetown and Cornwall’s Sarah Fullerton rink, two-time defending champions in the women’s event. Spencer Pitre, last year’s men’s champion skip, is now out of the age category, but Matthew Nabuurs and Connor MacPhee from that team are playing this year on the Sam Ramsay rink from the host club.

Here are the team rosters (skip to lead, coach, club):

JUNIOR MEN

Cody Dixon,  Brooks Roche, Dylan Lowery, Owen Newson, Tammy Dewar  (coach), Montague Curling Club.

Alex MacFadyen,  James Dalton, Matthew MacDonald, Parker MacFadyen,   David MacFadyen (coach), Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club (Summerside)

Matthew MacLean,   Marshall Smallman, Kevin Gallant, Alan MacLean, Glen MacLean  (coach), Maple Leaf Curling Club (O’Leary)

Alex Matters (throws 3rd stones),  Chris Gallant (throws 4th rocks),  Kyle Holland, Andrew Cameron,  Peter Gallant and Derrick Cameron (coaches), Charlottetown Curling Club

Sam Ramsay,  Matthew Nabuurs, Connor MacPhee, Shawn Pitre, Rob Roberts (coach),   Charlottetown Curling Club.

Jeffrey Taylor,  Alex Sutherland, Alex Jenkins, Jonathan Schut, Taylor McInnis (alternate), Allan Campbell and Bryan Sutherland (coaches), Cornwall Curling Club

JUNIOR WOMEN

Sarah Fullerton, Michelle McQuaid, Sara MacRae, Hillary Thompson, Angela Hodgson (coach),  Charlottetown and Cornwall curling clubs

Emily Keen,  Holly Predinchuk, Emma Matheson, Jenny Mutch, David Ross (coach),        Charlottetown Curling Club

Amanda MacLean, Kassinda Bulger, Emily Gray, Aleya Quilty, Glen MacLean and     Shelley Gray (coaches),  Cornwall Curling Club

Veronica Smith,  Katie Fullerton, Sabrina Smith, Jenny McLean, Paul Smith (coach), Cornwall Curling Club

The junior men will play a round robin, with the top two teams advancing to a best of three final round.

The junior women will play a double round robin, with the top two teams going to the sudden death final. In the event that one team goes through the double round robin undefeated, they will be declared the winner, without playing the one game final.

The junior women’s championship game, if required, goes Monday January 2 at 10 am, while the first junior men’s final goes Saturday at 10 am or 2:30 pm, or Sunday at 1 pm, depending on tiebreakers. The second men’s best of three game goes Monday at 10 am, with the third, if needed, taking place at 2:30 pm Monday.

Here is the opening draw for Thursday December 29 at 10 am:

Ice 1 (jr. women): Amanda MacLean (Cornwall) vs Veronica Smith (Cornwall)

Ice 2 (jr. men): Alex Matters (Charlottetown) vs Cody Dixon (Montague)

Ice 3 (jr. women): Emily Keen (Charlottetown) vs Sarah Fullerton (Charlottetown/Cornwall)

Ice 4 (jr. men): Matthew MacLean (Maple Leaf) vs Alex MacFadyen (Silver Fox)

Ice 5 (jr. men): Jeffrey Taylor (Cornwall) vs Sam Ramsay (Charlottetown)

Complete draw and live end-by-end results are available at peicurling.com/juniors and at livecurling.com.

The junior men’s and women’s champions will advance to the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors, February 4-12, 2012, in Napanee Ontario.

(reprinted in full from the CCA website)

Editor’s Note: Prince Edward Island curler Emily Gray will be leaving for Austria in less than two weeks to compete for Canada at the first-ever Youth Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck. Since July, she’s been writing about her experiences training with her Team Canada teammates Derek Oryniak, Corryn Brown and Thomas Scoffin. Today, Emily reflects on the journey so far.

Emily Gray takes a break from training to help out at a local kids’ curling program (Photo courtesy E. Gray)

1. Physical training: since you’ve started training for the team, how have your fitness/curling skills improved?

Fitness-wise, I am on one of the best programs.   Bob Comartin (Strength and Conditioning Specialist for the CCA) set me up with awesome workouts and I am in the best shape of my life! (I’m still young though!).  Curling-wise, I have been working with some of the best high performance coaches in Canada and they have all helped me so much with the littlest things.

2. Highlights from Whitecap?

Whitecap is something I look forward to every year!  Being in Atlantic Canada I know almost all the campers, and with it being my third year I know a lot of the returning campers.  My highlights were probably the cheer and the great shootout.  Seeing all my friends again was pretty awesome, but having the Youth Olympics team see

Whitecap cheer (Photo courtesy E. Gray)

my side of the country and all my friends was pretty cool.  I think my teammates really came out of their ‘western shells’ during the cheer!

3. Highlights from the Ottawa Junior Superspiel?

In Ottawa, my family got to meet the team for the first time.  It was really great having them meet the team and see us play.  Two of the highlights from that weekend were running around Parliament Hill in the freezing cold pitch black with my family, and winning ‘the pants’ in the consolation final with my team.  It was a great weekend and we got absolutely everything we could out of that weekend.  Whatever could happen in competition, happened.  We played the most games you could, ended up playing three games in one day, we were in a ‘sudden death’ scenario for our last three or four games, the rest of the team missed their flights and had to reschedule and we had to play in three different rinks.  We also had a lot of people come and watch us who we were not used to seeing, so we got absolutely everything out of that weekend that we could. It was absolutely ideal!

We also were interviewed for a video. And getting all of our Balance Plus gear was awesome!

Emily and Corryn model “The Pants” in Brandon (Photo courtesy E. Gray)

4. Highlights from the Brandon Junior spiel?

Brandon was definitely fun.  Even though we didn’t get as many games as we would have liked out of the weekend, it was still a great experience.  When we arrived, our Canada LoudMouth pants were waiting in Helen’s room so that was pretty awesome.  We all played really well, but we just didn’t have luck on our side.  Even though the weekend didn’t turn out as planned, we had a great practice on Sunday morning before we headed back to Winnipeg.  Helen showed us a lot of little drills that we can do at home, a lot to do with line, and I use them at every practice now.

5. Who has helped your team along the way?

The Canadian Curling Association has just been absolutely amazing to our team.  They provided funding covered our travel and provided us with the top-notch resources, so we have really learned a lot through these last nine months.

Helen (Helen Radford, CCA National Junior Coach) has helped us through all the ups and downs of becoming a team and she is always there to talk to. Performance-wise, Helen has provided us with an environment where we can grow as athletes and become the best we can be for Innsbruck.  I think I speak for the whole team when I say I cannot thank Helen enough for all that she has done for us in the last nine months.

Personally, my family has been there for me every step of the way.  I know it was hard for my mom to say good-bye to me on my first flight to Regina, but after this is all over she’ll probably be wanting to send me on a plane to anywhere, she’ll be so sick of me being home all the time!  My friends are all very supportive as well. I know they are probably sick and tired of my countdowns, but I know they are all very proud of me and of what I have accomplished.  I am constantly reminding them of how much I want gold, and I don’t think they realize how real this goal is becoming to me!

All in all, everybody who has encountered us through our Youth Olympics journey has been great!  Thank you all!

6. Looking ahead: what do you still have to do to get ready for Innsbruck?

I haven’t started packing yet: have to make ‘the list’!  I am still training hard and will be right up until I leave.  Of course, I will need to do a bit of shopping, too.

7. Any other thoughts about your Youth Olympics Team journey so far?

This experience has been absolutely unbelievable.  I have met so many people along the way, and my teammates are the best.  I don’t think I could ask for three greater people who I can call my team.  I know it’s going to be a sad day when I have to say good-bye to them, but I know that we’ll see each other sometime again along the way.  The whole journey has just been surreal and I still can’t believe that this is me, I am doing this.

But it will all be coming true in two weeks!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

(The 1st Winter Youth Olympic Games take place in Innsbruck, Austria, from January 13-22, 2012)

Team Canada with coach Helen Radford. Left to right, skip Thomas Scoffin, third Corryn Brown, lead Emily Gray, second Derek Oryniak (Photo courtesy H. Radford)