Ontario and New Brunswick Remain Undefeated at Senior Men’s

Ontario’s Howard Rajala and New Brunswick’s Wayne Tallon continue to lead the pack at the 2013 Canadian Senior Men’s Curling Championship at the Silver Fox Curling & Yacht Club in Summerside, PEI. Both teams bumped their records to 4-0 after wins over Newfoundland & Labrador and Alberta respectively. Rajala led NL 4-1 after three ends and 7-5 after seven ends bolstered by a key steal in that 7th end. St. John’s skip Glenn Goss replied with a single in the 8th only to watch as Ontario scored two more points in the 9th, then running their opposition out of stones in the final end. The final score was 8-5. Tallon’s game with St. Albert’s Wade White started off conservatively with Alberta ahead 2-1 after the 4th. Tallon’s Capital Winter Club team (Fredericton) took over the game with a count of three points in the 5th and four points in the 7th end. White came back with two points of his own in the 8th to close the margin to 8-5 then stunned the New Brunswick team with a steal of two points in the 9th. Mike Kennedy, who plays last stones for the team, made a nice raise take-out to remove an Albertan shot in the four foot area. White then drew under cover to the back eight foot area. Kennedy calmly followed him down for the 9-7 win. Alberta drops to 2-2. Alan O’Leary of Nova Scotia stayed close to the leaders with an 8-5 triumph over the still winless Glen Hudy of the Northwest Territories. A steal of three in the 7th broke this game open. NS is at 3-1 while the NWT is 0-4.

Manitoba Skip Lois Fowler
photo by Leona Arsenault

Manitoba’s Lois Fowler, who placed third at the 2009 Seniors right here in Summerside, joins Colleen Pinkney atop the leaderboard, surviving a scare from PEI’s Nola Murphy. Murphy who is representing the host club and province, scored three points in the 1st end and led 5-3 after the 6th end. Fowler broke the game open with a big five points in the 7th end and three more points in the 9th end for the 11-6 win. Fowler joins Colleen Pinkney of Nova Scotia at 4-0. Saskatchewan’s Cathy Inglis posted her first win of the championship with a solid 8-5 win over BC’s Karen Lepine. Both rinks are 1-3. Vicky Barrett of Sudbury and her teammates from Northern Ontario defeated Yellowknife’s Ann McKeller-Gillis 11-5 evening their record at 2-2.  The NWT team drops to 1-3. The draw schedule can be found here. The list of teams participating in this seniors championships can be found here. Statistics for previous games played in the round robin can be found here. Results can be found at here. Play continues all week with the championship finals for both genders scheduled for Sunday, March 24 at 10:00 am EST. The winners will represent Canada at the 2014 World Seniors at a location yet to be announced.