Three of the four teams for Wednesday’s men’s and women’s finals were determined today at The Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy Provincial Masters Curling Championships, for curlers age 60 and over, being played at the Maple Leaf Curling Club in O’Leary. Both the men’s and women’s sections are playing a double knockout format.
In the men’s section, Clair Sweet of the host club won the A final this afternoon, with a 6-4 win over Louis Walsh of Summerside’s Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club. The B finals go tomorrow morning at 9:30, with Walsh taking on Fred Fall from the Crapaud Community Curling Club, and Sweet taking on defending champion Mel Bernard from the Silver Fox. The winners will square off in the B final at 1:30. If Sweet is in that final and wins it, he will take the championship. If not, A final winner Sweet will take on the B final winner in the championship game at 5:30 pm.
The two finalists were determined today in the women’s division, with Ruth Stavert and her Cornwall rink edging the Marg Nowlan foursome from Summerside by an 8-7 score to take the A final, and the Shirley Berry rink from Charlottetown and Cornwall defeating Summerside’s Marg Nowlan team by a 9-2 score, taking four points in the fifth end and stealing a deuce in the sixth to bring the game to an early conclusion.
Stavert and Berry now face off in the women’s final, at 9:30 Wednesday morning. Defending champion Carol Sweetapple lost her first two games, and finished play on Tuesday.
Seven men’s and four women’s rinks took part in the event.
Winners and runners-up earn the right to compete in the Maritime Masters Championships, February 12-19, in New Glasgow NS. The winning teams, or the highest-finishing men’s and women’s rinks that choose to attend, are invited to participate in the Canadian Masters, March 26 to April 1 in Montreal.