The PEI Tankard provincial men’s curling championship got underway at 1:30 this afternoon at the Crapaud Community Curling Club. with eight of the ten teams in the event seeing action.
Number one seed Rod MacDonald and number two seed Eddie MacKenzie, both from the Charlottetown Curling Complex, picked up wins, with MacDonald beating Ted MacFadyen and his combined Cornwall/Silver Fox rink by a 7-4 score, and MacKenzie taking only six ends to down Allan Imnan and his Crapaud foursome by an 8-1 tally, aided by a three point steal in the fourth end.
The other two games in the opening draw saw Robert Shaw and his Charlottetown team take four points in the ninth end in a 7-4 win over clubmate Blair Weeks, and Charlottetown’s Robert Campbell rink beat Summerside’s Mel Bernard team, who are also entered in next week’s seniors championship, also by a 7-4 score.
Number three seed Jamie Newson, and defending champion Mike Gaudet, seeded fourth, both play out of the Charlottetown Curling Complex, and will see action in draw two, which gets underway at 6:30 this evening, with Newson facing Campbell and Gaudet taking on Shaw. The two other games will see the four teams who suffered losses in the first round square off, with Bernard playing Inman, and Weeks vs MacFadyen.
The triple knockout draw continues on Thursday and Friday with draws at 1:30 and 6:30, and wraps up with the 11 am Saturday draw, when the last two of the four qualifiers will be chosen for the Page championship round, Saturday at 4 pm. The winner of the Page game between the first two qualifiers will advance directly to the 4 pm Sunday final, while the loser will play the winner of the Page game between the other two qualifiers in the semi-final, Saturday morning at 11, with the winner of that game also advancing to the final.
The winning team from this year’s Tankard will advance to the Tim Hortons Brier, March 2-10 in Edmonton Alberta.
Admission to watch the PEI Tankard is just $2 a game or $15 for a full pass. End-by-end results are available at PEICurling.com/tankard