(by Danny Lamoureux)
New Brunswick’s Rene Comeau of the Capital Winter Club in Fredericton, with teammates Daniel Wenzek, Jordan Craft and Ryan Freeze, remain undefeated at the 2014 M&M Meat Shops Canadian Junior Men’s Curling Championships in Liverpool, NS.Comeau is 5-0 and will be the number one seed advancing from Men’s Pool B following this afternoon’s 8-2 victory over Yukon’s Joe Wallingham. He will face BC’s Cameron de Jong in the last game of Pool play and will finish first overall in this pool regardless of that outcome.
Alberta’s Carter Lautner moved into a tie with idle Robert Mayhew of Nova Scotia with an 11-4 win over PEI’s Kyle Holland. Both Alberta and Nova Scotia are 4-1 and will advance to the championship round. PEI drops to 1-4.
While Ontario’s Ryan McCrady had the afternoon off, his 4-1 record is still a game up on both Northern Ontario’s Tanner Horgan and Saskatchewan’s Tyler Hartung. The Kronau, Sask., skip defeated Horgan 5-3 to keep close to the leaders and the championship pool berth. Both teams are 3-2.
Quebec’s Adam Freilich is a game back at 2-3 following a 12-2 win over Nunavut’s Jamie Airut. The Rankin Inlet-based team is winless at 0-6.
(CCA photo)
Behind a pro-Nova Scotia crowd at the arena this afternoon, Chester CC’s Mary Fay brought the crowd to its feet and drew the largest cheer of the week when she scored three points in the seventh end to jump ahead of Krysta Burns of Northern Ontario. A steal of three in the next end earned Fay a concession at 9-4 from the Northern Ontario skip. Fay is now in second place in Women’s Pool B at 3-1, one game behind Ontario’s Molly Greenwood (4-1) who had the afternoon bye.
In a bid to remain undefeated, Alberta’s Kelsey Rocque was up against Sarah Koltun of the Yukon. The Whitehorse skip was flawless for the first six ends, in complete control of the game up 8-4. A determined Rocque, from the Saville Centre in Edmonton, grabbed a deuce in the seventh and then stole single points in the eighth, ninth and 10th ends to snatch the victory away from Koltun. Alberta stays undefeated at 4-0 while Koltun is in danger of missing the championship round at 2-3.
Saskatchewan’s Kristen Streifel kept her hopes alive by defeating Nunavut’s Sadie Pinksen 12-3. Streifel is 2-2 while Pinksen is 0-5.
Finally, Quebec’s Camille Boisvert moved into a three way tie for third in Pool A with an 8-3 win over NWT’s Carina McKay Saturnino. Both teams are 2-2 along with Streifel (SK).
Round-robin games are taking place at both Queens Place Emera Centre and the Liverpool Curling Club in the beautiful South Shore region of Nova Scotia.
The teams have been seeded (based on last year’s results) into two seven-team pools for each gender and will first play a six-game round robin within each pool from Saturday through Tuesday. The top three teams in each pool, plus two teams with the next best won-lost records, then advance to the Championship Round for a further four-game partial round robin from Wednesday through Friday, with their earlier records carried forward.
Once the top three teams for each gender have been determined, all playoff games will be played at Queens Place Emera Centre. The women’s final is Saturday, Jan. 25, while the men’s final is Sunday, Jan. 26. Both finals will be televised live on TSN/RDS2 at 4 p.m. AST/3 p.m. EST.
For the second consecutive year, the competition format involves all 14 Member Associations of the Canadian Curling Association (10 provinces, plus Northern Ontario, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon).
The full scoreboard can be viewed at http://www.curling.ca/scoreboard
The leaderboard can be viewed at http://www.curling.ca/2014juniors-en/standings