It was an all-Atlantic Canada final at the 30 team, $40,000 Challenge Chateau Cartier de Gatineau cashspiel in Gatineau Quebec this afternoon, with the Mark Dacey rink from Halifax edging the Brad Gushue team from St. John’s, which includes PEI natives Adam Casey and Brett Gallant, by a 7-6 score. Gushue led 6-3 after six ends of the eight end contest, but Dacey narrowed the gap with a deuce in seven, and stole another pair in the eighth for the $10,000 win, with $7000 going to the runner-up Gushue squad. Other members of Team Dacey are Tommy Sullivan, Stephen Burgess, and Andrew Gibson.
In the semi-finals, Gushue downed the Ottawa rink skipped by Souris PEI native Ian MacAulay by a 7-1 score, while Dacey pulled off a deuce in the final end to edge Toronto’s Greg Balsdon 5-4 in another come-from-behind victory. The MacAulay and Balsdon rinks each pocket $4500.
PEI’s Eddie MacKenzie rink lost to Team Eazy Express (Brad Jacobs from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) by a 6-0 score in three ends, on Saturday afternoon, and were eliminated from further play. Team Eazy Express went on to beat the Guy Hemmings rink and grab one of the final qualifiers in Sunday morning’s quarter-final round.
The Gushue and Dacey rinks went undefeated in the triple knockout and earned a day off Saturday and “A” side berths in the quarter-finals, where Dacey got by Mark Kean of Toronto 8-7 in an extra end, Gushue edged Team Eazy Express 6-5, Balsdon beat Martin Ferland of Quebec 5-3 in an extra, and MacAulay beat Quebec’s Jean-Michel Menard 6-2.Kean, Team Eazy Express, Ferland, and Menard all go home with $3500.
The MacKenzie rink stole a deuce in an extra end to win their opener, 6-5 over the Bowie Abbis-Mills team from Aylmer Ont. on Thursday. The PEI foursome, which includes third Anson Carmody, second Christian Tolusso who is originally from Ottawa, just across the river from Gatineau, and lead Alex MacFadyen, lost their next two games, 9-5 to Bryan Cochrane of Ottawa on Thursday, and 8-6 to Michael Fournier of Montreal.
Results: http://www.ontariocurlingtour.com/events.php?eventid=2739