It’s a repeat win for both the Open Division (any combination of male and female curlers), and the Women’s Division at the Ferguson-Logan Montague Funeral Home Provincial 2 Person Stick Championship, which wrapped up this afternoon at the Crapaud Community Curling Club. The Open final saw defending champions Sterling Stratton and Barry Craswell from the Cornwall Curling Club beat the Leonard Peters and Ruth Walsh duo from the host Crapaud club by a 6-1 score, running the hometown team out of rocks in the final end. The Women’s Division final, featuring the same teams as last year, went to an extra end, with Gloria Clarke and Ruth Stavert, who have now won 6 out of the seven championships of the event’s history, scoring a deuce for a 6-4 win over their Cornwall clubmates Etta Reid, who was on the 2014 winning team, and Myrna Craswell.
Photo (L-R): Open Division runners-up Ruth Walsh and Leonard Peters
Photo (L-R): Women’s Division runners-up Etta Reid and Myrna Craswell
Peters and Walsh beat Cornwall’s Vernon Chowan and Ernie Stavert rink 5-3 in semi-final action, while Stratton and Craswell defeated Cornwall clubmates Joe Gill and Wayne MacPherson by a 6-2 score to advance to the Open final. The women’s semi saw Reid and Craswell down Joan Doiron and Jane Peters of Crapaud 11-3 to advance to the final against undefeated Clarke and Stavert.
The top four open division teams Stratton/Craswell and Walsh/Peters, along with semi-finalists Chowan/Stavert and Gill/MacPherson, along with the top two women’s rinks Clarke/Stavert and Reid/Craswell all 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, Stratton/Craswell and Walsh/Peters, 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.
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, visit www.canadianstickcurling.ca.