The Eddie MacKenzie rink from the Charlottetown Curling Complex beat their clubmates, the Phil Gorveatt foursome, by an 8-2 score this afternoon to win the Tankard Provincial Men’s Curling Championship, held at the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Community Complex in conjunction with the Scotties women’s championship and the Future Scotties/Tankard developmental event for young curlers. The Scotties was won earlier by the Robyn MacPhee foursome, while the Cruz Pineau rink from the host club was the only team to go undefeated in the three-game, partial round robin Future Scotties/Tankard combined event.
Photo (L-R): Matthew Nabuurs, Robbie Doherty, Eddie MacKenzie. Photo credit: Emily Gray
In this afternoon’s Tankard final, MacKenzie, whose team includes Sean Ledgerwood at third, second stone Matthew Nabuurs, and lead Robbie Doherty, with coach Al Ledgerwood, was leading 5-0 after five ends of play, stealing singles in ends 1, 3, and 4, and a deuce in the second end. Gorveatt took singles in ends six and seven, but a MacKenzie triple in the eighth brought the game to an early conclusion.
MacKenzie won only one of the three modified triple knockout sections in the event, while Gorveatt won the other two, making it necessary for MacKenzie to win two championship round games today while Gorveatt would have won the championship had he taken either one. In this morning’s game, MacKenzie had an 8-7 lead going into the final end, where he stole a single for a 9-7 win. Other members of the runner-up Phil Gorveatt rink are Kevin Champion at third, second Mike Dillon, and lead Mark Butler.
The MacKenzie team now advance to the Tim Hortons Brier, March 4-12, 2017 at Mile One Centre in St. John’s, NL. Phil Gorveatt, skip of the runner-up team, has been named as tbeir alternate at the Brier.