First draws are at 10 NT (9:30 AT) on Saturday morning at the Corner Brook Civic Centre and the Corner Book Curling Club, as the 2015 M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors return to Newfoundland and Labrador for the first time in three decades, at which time they hosted the junior men’s (separate events back then), event, won by Alberta’s Kevin Martin. As was the case two years ago, PEI will be represented by teams skipped by Smiths – Tyler and Veronica. The Smiths are not related.
Tyler Smith, who is competing in both his second Canada Games, and his second Canadian Juniors this year, hails from the Crapaud area, but the other curlers on his Crapaud/Montague rink are from the Montague Curling Club – third Brooks Roche, second Dylan Lowery, and lead Ryan Lowery. The team is coached by Tyler’s father, Kevin Smith.
Photo (L-R): Tyler Smith, Brooks Roche, Dylan Lowery, Ryan Lowery, coach Kevin Smith
Veronica Smith also comes from the Crapaud area, but curls out of the Cornwall Curling Club, with her team of third stone Chloé McCloskey, Veronica’s sister Sabrina Smith at second, and lead Katie Fullerton. The team is coached by Bill Hope.
Photo (L-R): Veronica Smith, Chloé McCloskey, Sabrina Smith, Katie Fullerton, coach Bill Hope
It’s the Veronica Smith team’s third consecutive trip to the Canadian Juniors, and Veronica’s last, as she will be aged out next season, although her teammates will still be Junior age. The Smith rink have curled together for 11 seasons.
PEI women open play against BC at 9:30 AT on Saturday, while the men take to the ice against Saskatchewan at 2 pm AT. Both teams are on the ice again at 7 pm. with PEI men facing the Yukon Territories and the women taking on the Newfoundland and Labrador team.
Here is the draw schedule Click here to download the draw in Adobe PDF format:
The website for the Canadian Juniors is www.curling.ca/2015juniors-en
With 14 teams in each gender (representing each of the 10 provinces in addition to Northern Ontario, the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut), the field is split into two seven-team pools, with seeding based on win-loss records at the 2014 Canadian Juniors in Liverpool, N.S. Teams will play a round robin within their pool, leading to a championship pool beginning on Wednesday, which will then lead to the weekend playoffs. Teams that don’t qualify for the championship pool will play a seeding pool to determine rankings for the 2016 Canadian Juniors in Stratford Ontario. Meantime, non-playoff teams will participate in a mixed doubles competition.
The men’s and women’s playoffs will be televised by the TSN network as well as RDS2 (French). The women’s semifinal is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 31, at 1:30 p.m. NST/1 p.m. AST, with the gold-medal game at 8 p.m. NST/7:30 p.m. AST.
The men’s and women’s champions in Corner Brook will represent Canada at the 2015 World Junior Men’s and Women’s Championships, February 28 to March 8 in Tallinn Estonia. Canada has won a leading 17 world junior men’s titles since 1975 and eight women’s crowns (Scotland leads with nine) since 1988. The last Canadian teams to win world junior titles were skipped by Saskatchewan’s Marliese Miller in 2003 in Flims, Switzerland, and by Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher in 2012 in Östersund, Sweden.
(with info from the CCA)