CHARLOTTETOWN – A brother and sister from the sport of curling, the founder of the sport of fencing in the province and one of the most notable figures in Island baseball, hockey and harness racing have been named the P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame’s 2018 inductees.
The inductions are sponsored by the P.E.I. Mutual Insurance Company.
Peter MacDonald
(Curling)
One of P.E.I.’s most successful curlers, MacDonald played on five P.E.I. Tankard winners that represented the province in the Brier national championship in 1976, 1978, 1981, 1996 and 2001. He was also the fifth player selected by five other P.E.I. champions.
Born in Summerside, MacDonald skipped the 1973 P.E.I. junior men’s championship winning team, and two years later he was a member of Bill Merklinger’s P.E.I. rink at the Canada Games in Lethbridge, Alta.
He also won three provincial mixed curling championships, and represented the Island in the nationals in 1990, 1994 and 1999. His sister, Kathy O’Rourke, played on the ’99 team.
He won the P.E.I. senior men’s title twice in 2010 and 2013.
Kathy O’Rourke
(Curling)
Kathy O’Rourke skipped one of P.E.I.’s greatest curling teams to the final at the 2010 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, narrowly losing to Jennifer Jones in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. It was only the second time that P.E.I. had finished as runner-up in the national women’s championship.
She won her first P.E.I. women’s title in 1989, playing second on the Kathie Gallant rink. She was second stone with Angela Roberts’s rink in 1991, and was third for Susan McInnis in 1996. She also played with Rebecca Jean MacPhee in 1999 that was the host team for the Scotties in Charlottetown.
She skipped her own rink to the 2002 P.E.I. title, and then the 2010 foursome with Erin Carmody, Geri-Lynn Ramsay and Tricia Affleck.
O’Rourke also played on Robert Campbell’s 1989 rink that won the Canadian mixed championship in Brandon, Man., a team that included her husband, Mark O’Rourke, and Roberts.
In 1999, playing third with her brother Peter MacDonald, husband Mark and sister-in-law Karen A. MacDonald, the Island team finished second in the national mixed.
O’Rourke also joined her brother Rod, husband Mark and sister-in-law Karen MacDonald to win another Island mixed title in 2013.
Click for information on the other inductees at the Journal Pioneer.