The Yellowknife Curling Club hosted the first national curling championship in the Northwest Territories with Draws One and Two of the 2014 Canadian Senior Curling Championships pre-qualifying event on Thursday..

The first draw pitted the team from Canada’s most easterly province against their counterparts from Nunavut while on the adjacent sheet Team Yukon battled it out with Team Northern Ontario. Both contests came down the proverbial last rock as both games came home tied.

Nunavut skip Glen Hudy and Newfoundland and Labrador skip Lorne Henderson in action during the pre-qualifying event at the Yellowknife Curling Club (Photo Kyle Kruger)

In the NU/NL tilt, skip Glen Hudy of Iqaluit needed a long angle raise to remove the NL shot stone, but although it was close, unfortunately for the NU four, it just breezed by the NL counter resulting in a 7-6 final score for curlers from the Re-Max Centre in St. John’s.

The NO/YK game saw Whitehorse skip George Hilderman execute a delicate back line weight tap, around a guard, of a shot NO stone residing on the edge of the four foot, which he did to record the 9-8 victory. Earlier in the game the teams traded back-to-back scores of three, followed by back-to-back deuces to tie the game at six after six ends of the 10-end affair.

Yukon beat NL 9-7  Thursday evening in the battle for the first the two pre-qualifying spots in the full round robin to begin on Saturday. Thursday at 7 p.m. (MDT) Team NL will take on Team YK.

The women’s teams in the pre-qualifying portion of the championship also took to the ice Thursday evening with Team PEI, skipped by Jennifer Scott, downing Team NU 11-2, taking four points in the opening end, another four in the third, and stealing a triple in the fourth end to bring the game to an early end. Team ON had the bye as there is no team from YK. Team PEI now plays Ontario at 9 am MT today for the spot in the main event.

The winners of the 2014 Canadian Seniors will represent Canada at the 2015 World Senior Curling Championships, at a site and date to be announced by the World Curling Federation. Last year’s Canadian champions, skipped by Colleen Pinkney of Truro, N.S., and Wayne Tallon of Fredericton, N.B., are competing in this year’s World Seniors, April 23-30 at Dumfries, Scotland. Since the World Seniors began in 2002, Canada has won eight men’s and nine women’s titles.

Draw results for the 2014 Canadian Seniors will be instantly available at www.curling.ca.

For information about the event, including team rosters and event schedules, visit www.curling.ca/2014seniors-en.

(Story by Bill Tschirhart)