Ontario Gaining Momentum

Ontario’s Cory Heggestad continues his strong play at the 2013 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship at the TMR Curling Club in the Town of Mount Royal, QC. Facing PEI’s Robert Campbell, a two-time Canadian Mixed champ, Heggestad broke open a tie game with a score of two in the 4th end followed by a steal of a single point in the 5th heading to the break up 5-2. Campbell scored a single in the 6th and stole another single in the 7th. The teams traded singles in the 8th and 9th leaving Campbell a must steal to tie the game. Heggestad kept it relatively simple and needed only to remove a lone PEI counter to win the game 8-5. Ontario is now 4-1 and PEI drops to 2-4. Quebec’s Mike Fournier remained unbeaten by virtue of an exciting 9-8 win over Northern Ontario’s Mike Assad of Thunder Bay. Fournier scored deuces in each of the 1st, 3rd and 5th ends sandwiched around a three count by Assad in the 4th end to lead 6-4 after five ends. Northern Ontario has been particularly strong in the second half of their games and this one was no exception. Assad scored one in the 6th, two in the 8th end and stole a point in the 9th to lead 8-7 playing the 10th without the hammer. A couple of nice draw shots by third Alanna Routledge set-up the winning shot by Fournier when he made a quiet weight hit and roll to the top of the button for a count of two. Fournier leads the field as the only unbeaten team at 6-0. Northern Ontario drops to 3-2.

Nova Scotia (photo by Eve Bélisle)

Nova Scotia’s Brent McDougall rebounded from a pair of losses on Monday, stunning a pre-tournament favourite, Kurt Balderston of Alberta 9-4 in a game over after eight ends. A big score of five points in the 4th end was the difference. MacDougall improves to 4-2 while Balderston, the 1992 Canadian Mixed champion and runner-up to Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman in last year’s title game, is in danger of missing the playoffs at 1-4. The final game of this morning’s eighth draw was a back and forth battle between NB’s James Grattan and Yukon’s Steve Fecteau.  The score was tied at four playing the 6th end when Grattan took control with a three ender. A steal of one in the 9th ended this one at 9-5. Grattan is now 3-2 while Fecteau is winless after six games. This morning’s byes were: NWT’s Nick Saturnino (0-4), Saskatchewan’s Jeff Hartung (3-1), Manitoba’s Terry McNamee (2-2) and BC’s Tom Buchy (2-2). Play continues all week at the TMR Curling Club in the Town of Mount Royal, Quebec (part of greater Montréal) with the championship final set for 2:00 pm EST on Saturday, November 24th. Real time results are available at www.curling.ca Live streaming is available at www.canadianmixed.com Tuesday draw times are scheduled for 10:00 am; 2:30pm and 7:00 pm EST.