The Sandy Hope team from the Cornwall Curling Club beat their clubmates, the Shirley Berry rink, by a 7-4 score this morning to win the best of five PEI Master’s women’s championship at the Charlottetown Curling Club. It’s Hope’s third consecutive PEI Masters title. Hope won the first two and the fourth game in the series, so game five was unnecessary. In today’s match, Hope scored three in the fourth end to lead 4-2 and scored a deuce in the sixth, while keeping Berry to singles in ends five and seven. Hope had a guard behind cover in the final end, and Berry couldn’t get to it. In the closing ceremonies, Hope announced that they will be attending both the Maritime Masters at the Bluenose Curling Club in New Glasgow Nova Scotia, March 16-18 2018, as well as the 2018 Canadian Masters Curling Championships in BC, April 1-8 at Surrey’s Cloverdale Curling Club and White Rock’s Peace Arch Curling Club. The Berry foursome also earned a spot in the Maritime Championships. Other members of the Hope squad are third Shelley Ebbett, second stone Debbie Rhodenhizer, and lead Arleen Harris, with coach Bill Hope, while Linda Fairhurst, Marlene Proude, and Marjorie Matthews round out the Berry team.

Photo (L-R): PEI Masters Women’s Champs Arleen Harris, Debbie Rhodenhizer, Shelley Ebbett, Sandy Hope

Photo (L-R): Master’s Women’s finalists (L-R): Shirley Berry, Linda Fairhurst, Marlene Proude, Marjorie Matthews

On the men’s side, there will be a sudden-death final at 2 pm between the Bill Hope rink from Cornwall and the Ted MacFadyen foursome from the Silver Fox in Summerside. Hope had won two of the three Modified Triple Knockout sections, while MacFadyen took one, so Hope would have  taken the title with a win this morning, but MacFadyen, up 7-1 after five ends, forced the extra game with an 8-3 win in seven ends.

Master’s curlers are age 60 and over.