It took an extra end, but the defending champion Lou Nowlan men’s team from the host Silver Fox Curling Club in Summerside has captured all three modified triple knockout sections at the PEI Masters Curling Championships, for curlers age 60 and over, and has repeated as men’s champions without having to play the two-game championship round. Nowlan and his team of third stone David MacFadyen, second Earle Proude, and lead Alan Montgomery, played the Bill Hope rink from Cornwall in all three section finals, recovering from a 5-3 deficit after seven ends in the Monday morning “C” final with a tying eighth-end deuce, and a single-steal in the extra end for a 6-5 final score. Other members of the finalist Hope rink are third Peter Murdoch, second stone David Murphy, and lead Dario Zannier.
Winning men’s team (L-R): Mary MacKay (President, Silver Fox Curling Club), Lou Nowlan, David MacFadyen, Earle Proude, Alan Montgomery, Andrew Robinson (Past President, Curl PEI)
Finalist Men’s Team (L-R): Mary MacKay (President, Silver Fox), Bill Hope, Peter Murdoch, David Murphy, Dario Zannier, Andrew Robinson (Past President, Curl PEI)
Last year’s women’s winners, the Sandy Hope team from Cornwall, need only one win out of the two championship round games, at 2:30 this afternoon and at 10 am Tuesday, to repeat as champions, as they won their second section, the “C”, this morning, 8-3 over their clubmates and last year’s finalist rink, the Shirley Berry squad, and will have a “double life” in the championship round, winning the title if they take either game, while Berry and her team would have to win both.
Both the winning Nowlan and finalist Hope men’s teams and the women’s winner and finalist will compete against their peers from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia at the Maritime Masters, here on PEI at the Cornwall Curling Club from March 12-14 2020, while the men’s and women’s winning teams, or the finalist teams if they are unable to attend, also earn the right to compete in the 2020 Canadian Masters Curling Championships, March 30-April 5, 2020 at the Riverside Country Club in Rothesay, and the Thistle St.-Andrews Curling Club in Saint John New Brunswick.
Live end-by-end results from the PEI Masters are available at PEICurling.com/scoreboard