The reigning PEI Junior Women’s champs, the Veronica Smith rink, who curl out of the Cornwall Curling Club, are one of the 16 women’s rinks participating in the 20th annual edition of the JSI-OVCA Junior SuperSpiel, running from November 1st to 3rd at various clubs in Ottawa.

CCA Photo – Front row (L-R): Veronica Smith, Katie Fullerton, Sabrina Smith, Chloe McCloskey
Back row: Bill Hope (coach)

(Info from Superspiel.ca)

The event will kick off on Halloween night with the annual Pro-Am event, where young OVCA curlers get to play with the Superspiel Pros at the RCN (Navy) Curling Club. As in recent years, the main event games will be played at the Ottawa, Granite, Carleton Heights, City View, Navy and Manotick Curling Clubs with the finals this year at the Granite Curling Club of West Ottawa at 5pm Atlantic on Sunday, November 3rd.

The field is set with junior championship players and teams from Scotland and the USA, as well as every province from Manitoba east to Newfoundland; teams that finished in the top of the field at the 2013, 2012 and 2011 Canadian Junior Championships, Optimists U18, Atlantic U18 as well as the 2011 Canada Winter Games. Joining for the first time will be junior women’s teams from “North of 60”, with teams from Whitehorse and Iqaluit.

The Canadian Junior men’s champions, Matt Dunstone and his team from Winnipeg will lead the men’s field with many other provincial champions as well the USA Champions, the Korey Dropkin team from Massachusetts. The women’s field is deep and competitive with the Silver medal skip from the last year’s Junior Nationals, Manitoba’s Shannon Birchard and her new team and the Bronze medal vice Holly Donaldson joining last year’s SS runner-up team from Ontario skipped by Kendal Haymes. They are joined by the fourth place team from Junior Nationals skipped by the Yukon’s Sarah Koltun, sixth place New Brunswick’s Jessica Daigle, USA’s Cory Christensen and Scotland’s Jennifer Martin. The full listing of men’s teams is here and the women’s team listing is here.

Sixteen teams in all on both the men’s and women’s side will compete for the 2013 SuperSpiel Championship. Qualifying from the Ottawa Valley Qualifier held at the Almonte Curling Club from October 18th to 20th were: Lauren Horton, Cassandra Lewin, Abby Bolton, Pascal Michaud, Ryan McCrady, and Colton Daly. The Southern Ontario Qualifier was held at the Galt Curling Club from September 27th to 29th with Aaron Chapman and Eric Bradey qualifying on the men’ side and Erin Macaulay qualifying on the women’s side.

All venues are open to the public, admission is free and fans are welcomed.

Website: SuperSpiel.ca