The 2015 PEI Stick Championship, sponsored by the Ferguson-Logan Funeral home in Montague, wrapped up this afternoon at the Maple Leaf Curling Club in O’Leary, with teams from the Cornwall Curling Club winning both the Open (any combination of male/female) and Women’s divisions.
The Sterling Stratton/Barry Craswell duo edged Floyd Stewart and Gordon MacDonald from the Montague Curling Club 5-4 in the Open final. The two teams topped their respective round robin pools with 4-1 records, giving them byes into the semi-finals. Stewart/MacDonald edged their clubmates Bob Leard and Larry Dewar 5-4 in an extra end in the semis, while Stratton/Craswell stole a single in the fourth end, and deuces in five and six to beat the Blair Bernard/Dale Dennis team from the host club 7-2 to advance to the final. 12 Open Division teams were entered.
In the six team women’s division, the Gloria Clarke/Ruth Stavert rink edged their Cornwall clubmates Myrna Craswell and Etta Reid 5-4, stealing a point in the fourth end to give them the edge in the game. Reid was on last year’s winning team, while Stavert/Clarke won the previous four years. Craswell/Reid had a 4-1 round robin record, while Clarke/Stavert went 3-2. Clarke/Stavert beat the Audrey Thomson/Ann Barwise twosome 7-4 in the semi-final to advance to the final. Thomson/Barwise had a 4-1 round robin record.
The four open division teams in the semis (Laird/Dewar, Bernard/Dennis and the final (Stratton/Craswell, Stewart/MacDonald), along with the top two women’s rinks from this year’s event (Clarke/Stavert and Craswell/Reid) earn the right to compete in the Maritime Stick Curling Championships, March 11-13 in Amherst, NS.
The top two Open and Women’s division teams (the Women’s division, introduced when PEI hosted the event, is back this year) also earn the right to compete in the 2015 Canadian Open Stick Curling Championship, April 2-5 at the Assiniboine Memorial Curling Club in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This is an “open” event, but reserves entries for the top two teams from each of BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI.
In stick curling there are two curlers per team, who deliver their rocks with delivery sticks, with each team member delivering from opposite ends. Sweeping is allowed only from the hog line to the back of the house at the playing end. Two curlers, one from each team, alternately deliver 6 stones each per end, while their teammate skips that end. The roles are then reversed, and the partners deliver the stones back. No stone may be removed from play until the fourth stone of each end. Games are six ends and take about an hour to play. For more information on stick curling, including complete rules of play, visit www.stickcurling.ca.
Linescores and standings at: http://curlatlantic.com/scoreboard/#/competitions/1505-2015-ferguson-logan-funeral-home-stick-curling-championship-pei/scoreboard