The 9 am women’s draw this morning is going as scheduled as the Scotties Tournament of Hearts Provincial Women’s Curling Championship, and the PEI Tankard Provincial Men’s Curling Championship get underway at the three-sheet Western Community Curling Club in Alberton, with seven women’s and six men’s teams competing. Defending women’s champion skip Robyn MacPhee is not in this year’s event, but Meaghan Hughes and Michelle McQuaid from her team are on the Suzanne Birt rink, with third Marie Christianson, while Sarah Fullerton is skipping her own foursome. Other women’s entries include teams skipped by Montague’s Tammy Dewar, 2015 Canadian Travelers Curling Club Champion Lisa Jackson, 3-time PEI Junior Champion Veronica Smith, Chloé McCloskey, a former member of Smith’s rink. and Melissa Morrow, a member of the 2015 Canadian Travelers Championship team, who skipped the PEI Travelers runner-up rink last season.

On the men’s side, both 2-time defending Tankard champion Eddie MacKenzie, who has won the event in 5 out of the past 8 years, and last year’s runner-up John Likely, who won the event back in 2002 as skip and 1985 as second, are back, along with reigning PEI Travelers and Mixed champion Jamie Newson, PEI Pepsi Junior champion Tyler Smith, and two rinks from the Silver Fox in Summerside skipped by Darren Higgins and Steve vanOuwerkerk.

The women’s and men’s teams will each play modified triple-knockout draws with the winners of each section dropping down to compete in subsequent sections. The section winners will then advance to a two-game championship round on Sunday January 13, unless a team wins all three section, in which case those games won’t be needed. A team winning two sections will play in both championship games and win the event if they take either game, while their opponent would have to win both games.

The winning women’s team will advance to the national Scotties in Sydney NS:

Live results from the PEI events are available at PEICurling.com

Click for Live Results

PEI Scotties and Tankard Draw and schedule

(Will not be updated during event – refer to Live Scoring for draw progression)

Qualifier games have yellow game number background.

Note: Four teams have been seeded in both the men’s and women’s draws based on cashspiel earnings, while the other 2 men’s and 3 women’s teams were placed in position based on a draw from a hat.

Men’s Seedings: 1. vanOuwerkerk 2. T.Smith 3. MacKenzie 4. Higgins

Women’s Seedings: 1. Birt 2. V.Smith 3. Fullerton 4. Morrow

Click for previous women’s ch’ship websites and winners