Round robin play concluded this afternoon at the Ferguson-Logan Montague Funeral Home Provincial 2 Person Stick Championship at the Crapaud Community Curling Club, with some previous champions, and some new names advancing to the Friday championship round.
In the 12 team, two pool Open Division, which permits any combination of male and female players, the Cornwall team of Joe Gill and Wayne MacPherson, new to stick curling this season, after first playing it in the 55+ Games last year, finished atop the A pool standings with a 4-1 win-loss record. The B pool was won by the Leonard Peters and Ruth Walsh rink, from the host club, who also had four wins and only one loss. These teams have byes into the noon Friday semi-finals, where Peters/Walsh will face the winner of a 10:45 am game between stick curling veterans Vernon Chowan/Ernie Stavert from Cornwall, and last year’s runners-up Floyd Stewart/Gordon MacDonald from Montague.
The other Open Division semi sees the Gill/MacPherson duo face the winner of the other 10:45 am match between defending champs Sterling Stratton/Barry Craswell, also from Cornwall, against longtime stick competitors Walter Callaghan and Roger Gavin from the Western Community Curling Club in Alberton. All the teams in the Friday morning games have 3-2 win-loss records following round robin play, as did the Bob Leard/Howard MacNeil twosome from Montague, who were eliminated on points as there was a 3 way tie for second in their pool and they were all tied 1-1 in head to head matches). The semi-final winners advance to the Open Division championship final at 2:30 pm Friday.
In the five team women’s pool, the Cornwall duo of Gloria Clarke and Ruth Stavert, who have won 5 out of the 6 provincial women’s stick championships held so far (Clarke was unable to compete in 2014), remain undefeated at 4-0, and have earned a bye to the 2:30 pm Friday final, against the winners of the 12 noon semi-final. against Jane Peters/Joan Doiron from Crapaud, who went 3-1 in the round robin, and Cornwall’s Etta Reid/Myrna Craswell duo, who were 2-2. Reid was on the 2014 winning team, and Reid/Craswell were last year’s runners-up.
Live scoring for this event is at: https://peicurling.com/Scoreboard/#!/competitions/1985
The top four open division teams in the semis and the final, along with the top two women’s rinks from this year’s event earn the right to compete in the Maritime Stick Curling Championships, March 16-18 at the Cornwall Curling Club.
The top two Open division teams also earn the right to compete in the 2016 Canadian Open Stick Curling Championship, March 21-23 in Vernon BC. This is an “open entry” event, but reserves entries for the top two teams from each of BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI.