First draw complete at 2016 Canadian Mixed

The 2016 Canadian Mixed Curling Championships opened with the first draw on Sunday at the Weston Golf and Country Club in Toronto. Ontario’s Mike McLean, Brit O’Neil, Andrew Denny-Petch and Karen Sagle kicked it off with a 12-1 win over Nunavut’s Ed Macdonald, Denise Hutchings, Peter Mackey and Robyn Mackey. McLean cracked a three-ender in the first end with last-rock advantage then proceeded to rattle off steals of deuces in the second, third and fourth ends to lead 9-0. Macdonald picked up a single point after the break, but could not recover after McLean scored another three points and the teams shook after six ends. Saskatchewan started off strong in their first game with a 6-2 win over Prince Edward Island. The prairie province, represented by Bruce Korte, Ros Stewart, Kevin Marsh and Carolyn Marsh, took two points in the first end, then proceeded to steal a single point in the second and two in the fourth to go up 5-0 heading into the break. P.E.I.’s Eddie MacKenzie picked up a single in the fifth end and stole another point in the sixth end. Korte took another point in the seventh to extend the lead to 6-2 before running MacKenzie out of rocks in the eighth. Bob Sigurdson, Erika Sigurdson, Al Purdy and Lindsay Baldock of Manitoba had a barn burner against Quebec’s Maxime Elmaleh, Roxane Perron, Jean Gagnon and Sonia Delisle with an extra end showdown. Elmaleh kicked off the scoring with a steal of one in the first end. Sigurdson picked up a deuce in the second followed by a steal of one in the third. Quebec scored two with the hammer in the fourth to bring the score within one point going into the fourth end break. Manitoba took a single in the fifth and Quebec answered with a deuce in the sixth end for a 5-4 lead. After blanking the seventh end, Manitoba looked to score their deuce for the win, but came up short with a single to force the extra end. Sigurdson did manage to score that extra point with a hard-fought single in the extra for the win. Alberta’s Micky Lizmore took on Northern Ontario’s Colin Koivula to kick off the round robin. The teams traded single points throughout the game with the exception of the fourth end where Lizmore took a three-ender. In the end, Koivula couldn’t recover from the big end and finished up with a 5-3 loss. In the British Columbia versus Newfoundland and Labrador matchup, B.C.’s Dean Joanisse, Shannon Aleksic, Tyler Orme and Kelsey Steiger scored a solid 7-3 win over the Chris Ford team from the RE/MAX Centre in St. John’s. Competition continues on Monday with draws at 2:30 p.m. ET and 7 p.m. ET. For event, team and draw information, visit www.curling.ca/2016mixed. For a downloadable copy of the event draw, click here. For a downloadable copy of the team rosters, click here. Draw scores/standings will be immediately available on Curling Canada’s website, www.curling.ca.