The Canadian Under 18 Boys and Girls Curling Championships are underway in St. Andrews New Brunswick. The first draw took place Monday evening, while the opening ceremonies were at 9 this morning, before Draw 2 at 10 am.

Team PEI at the opening ceremonies (Doug Kelly photo)

Both PEI teams played their first games this morning, with the PEI Girl’s team, skipped by Lauren Ferguson out of the Cornwall, Charlottetown and Crapaud curling clubs, beating the Yukon 8-4, while the Boy’s squad, skipped by Mitchell Schut out of the  Cornwall Curling Club, lost 6-2 to a tough Quebec rink, 

Quebec vs PEI – final shot
(Capture from Bell Aliant Livestream)

The Ferguson rink stole a deuce in the 4th end, and took four points in the sixth, while Team Schut was kept to singles while the Quebec team took deuces in the first half of their game. Quebec stole the fifth, with Schut blanking the sixth. Quebec stole the seventh, and, up four in the last end, but facing three Schut counters, the Quebec skip made a hit to run the PEI team out of rocks in the eighth end.

Both PEI teams play again at 6 pm, with Schut taking on defending champ Jacob Horgan and his Sudbury team. Horgan won his opener 5-4 over Newfoundland and Labrador last evening. Ferguson plays Vernon BC’s Jaelyn Cotter (her father Jim, a 7-time Brier participant, is coaching), who is 0-2 following losses to Saskatchewan and Ontario.

Selected games from the 2018 Canadian Under-18 Championships will be streamed live for viewing on-line. Go to the event website, www.curling.ca/2018under18/, for links and more information.

The teams are split into two pools in each gender — two pools of six in the 12-team boys competition, and two pools of seven in the girls event (with 13 Member Associations competing in the girls competition, a host team from New Brunswick also is competing in order to create two even pools).

The top four teams in each pool will move into an eight-team championship double-knockout playoff round beginning on Friday, April 13. That will determine four teams in each gender for the Olympic-style semifinals on Saturday, April 14, at 1:30 p.m. AT. The semifinal winners will play for gold while the losers will play for bronze at 6 p.m. AT the same day.

Additionally, the teams that don’t make the playoffs will take part in a mixed doubles competition.

For information on team lineups, schedules and tickets, go to the event website: www.curling.ca/2018under18/.

(with info from Curling Canada)