The duo of Roddie MacLean and Paul Field, who knocked off the defending champions to win the Canadian Stick Curling Championship in their home Cornwall Curling Club back in 2013, will be getting a chance to do it again, earning a return engagement at the nationals in their home club, from March 31 to April 3rd. MacLean and Field won the 14-team Open (any combination of men or women on a team) division of the Ferguson-Logan Montague Funeral Home PEI Stick Curling Championship Thursday afternoon at the Montague Curling Rink by a score of 5-4 over clubmates Joe Gill and Doug Campbell in the final. Gill and Campbell had an early 3-0 lead in the game after stealing a second end deuce, and were up 4-3 coming come, but MacLean/Field scored a deuce in the final end to pull out the come-from-behind win.
PEI Stick Open Division winners Roddie MacLean (left) and Paul Field (right) with provincial stick curling co-ordinator Ernie Stavert
Open Division Finalists Doug Campbell (left) and Joe Gill
MacLean and Field advanced to the final with an 8-2 win over clubmates Vince Fisher and Paul Arsenault, while Gillis and Campbell edged Floyd Stewart and Gordon MacDonald from the host Montague club 4-3 in their semi-final match.
Women’s Division Finalists Myrna Craswell (left) and Myrna Sanderson
Meanwhile, the team of Etta Reid and Elaine Hughes beat their Cornwall clubmates Myrna Craswell and Myrna Sanderson 5-2 in the final to repeat as champs in the Women’s division, building up an early lead in the final with a deuce and a pair of steals to lead 4-0 after three, and kept their clubmates to singles in the rest of the game for the win.
Reid/Hughes had a bye to the championship final by virtue of finishing double round-robin play in the four-team field atop the standings with a 5-1 win-loss record, while the two Myrnas beat Cornwall clubmates Ruth Stavert and Gloria Clarke 7-3 in the semi-final to set up the final against the defending champions. Reid and Hughes will earn the right to compete in the Women’s division of the Canadian championship at their home club at the end of March.
In addition to the winners advancing to the Nationals, the top four Open division teams (MacLean/Field, Gillis/Campbell, Fisher/Arsenault, and Stewart/MacDonald), and the top two women’s division duos (Reid/Hughes and Craswell/Sanderson) from this event also advance to the Maritime Stick Curling Championships, also being held at the Cornwall Curling Club, the host club of five of these teams, from March 15-17.
File photo: MacLean (left) and Field at the 2013 Canadian Stick Curling Championships at the Cornwall Curling Club