Day one is over at the Curl PEI Provincial Masters Curling Championships, for curlers age 60 and over, being played at the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club in Summerside. The six sheet club allows all eight men’s and four women’s rinks to play at the same time, so all teams have played two draws.
The Ted MacFadyen rink from the host club, which includes Lou Nowlan and Earl Proude from last year’s winning team, which was skipped by Mel Bernard, and the Brian Ellis squad from the Crapaud Community Curling Club, are both 2-0 on the triple-knockout men’s side, and have advanced to the first of four qualifying matches for the Page championship round. The “A” qualifier is set for 2 pm Tuesday. MacFadyen beat clubmate John Holmes 6-3, taking a triple in the 3rd end and stealing the final frame, and stole a triple in the 7th end in a 9-2 win over Paul Arsenault and his Cornwall Curling Club team. Ellis was trailing 6-3 after 5 in his game against Clair Sweet of O’Leary’s Maple Leaf club, who stole 4 points in the fifth end. Ellis took a deuce in six, and stole singles in the final two ends to pull out a 7-6 win. He stole a deuce in the opening en and a single in the second to grab an early lead in his afternoon match against another Fox team, skipped by Louis Walsh, and hung on for a 6-3 win. Two teams, skipped by Matt Smith of Cornwall and Bob Maynard of the Fox, have two losses, and have moved down into the C event, while the remaining teams, skipped by Arsenault, Holmes, Sweet, and Walsh, have a win and a loss.
In the four-team double round-robin women’s section, 2012 Masters champ Shirley Berry and her Cornwall team lead the pack with a 2-0 win-loss record, edging Norma Sonier and her Silver Fox team 6-5, aided by a second end triple, and getting by Cornwall clubmate Gloria Clarke 8-7 in an extra end. In that game, Berry led 7-2 after five, but Clarke tied the game with five points in the next three ends.Berry had hammer in the extra and scored a single for the win.
Defending champion Diane MacKay, also from Cornwall, lost her opener 9-4 to Clarke, who again came on strong in the latter part of the game, taking a triple in the 4th, and then stealing a deuce and two singles to build up a five point lead. MacKay scored four points in the 6th end in an 8-6 win over Sonier in the afternoon draw. Clarke is also at 1-1, while Sonier is 0-2. MacKay will face Berry, while Clarke will take on Sonier in the 10 am Tuesday draw, while Berry plays Sonier, and Clarke will take on MacKay in the afternoon.
Women’s double round robin and men’s triple knockout play continue Tuesday and Wednesday with draws and 10 am and 2 pm. The men’s Page round, featuring the four qualifiers out of the knockout goes Wednesday at 4, along with a women’s tiebreaker if needed. The winner of the men’s Page game between the A and B qualifiers goes directly to the 2 pm Thursday final, while the loser of the A vs B game takes on the winner of the C vs D game in the semi-final at 10 am on Thursday, with the winner of the semi going to the final.
The second and third place teams on the women’s side after the round robin and any tiebreakers goes to the semi-final at 10 am Thursday, with the winner of the semi facing the 1st place team in the 2 pm final.
Winners and runners-up in both the men’s and the women’s divisions earn the right to compete in the Maritime Masters Championships, March 14-17 at the Cornwall Curling Club.. The winning teams, or the highest-finishing men’s and women’s rinks that choose to attend, are invited to participate in the 2014 ATB Financial Canadian Masters Championships, March 31 to Apr. 6 at the Coaldale Granite Curling Club in Coaldale Alberta.
End by end results from the PEI Masters are available at PEICurling.com/masters.