Nova Scotia claims first place at Mixed and advances to final

Nova Scotia, skipped by Mark Dacey of Halifax, claimed first place after the completion of the round robin on Friday morning to advance to the final of the 2010 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship. Nova Scotia won its final game, 9-6 over Northern Ontario, to finish with a 9-2 record, tied with host Ontario (Mark Bice of Sarnia).  However, since Dacey defeated Bice Thursday night, 8-7, in a thrilling extra end affair, his Mayflower Curling Club team was awarded top spot and a bye to Saturday afternoon’s final at 1:30 pm. Dacey, who won the 2004 Nokia Brier and a bronze medal at the 2004 Ford Worlds in Gävle, Sweden, also won the Canadian Mixed in 2002 in front of his home club fans.  Nova Scotia has won six Mixed titles in total, the last in 2003 by skip Paul Flemming in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Ontario, which completed its round robin last night, goes to Friday’s semi-final at 6:00 pm ET, to meet the winner of a third-place tiebreaker at 1:30 pm this afternoon between British Columbia (Jason Montgomery of Duncan) and Manitoba (Dave Boehmer of Selkirk). Manitoba squeaked by Saskatchewan, 7-6 while British Columbia was a 6-4 winner over Alberta in Draw 17, to both finish with 8-3 records, thus necessitating the tiebreaker. The balance of the standings was as follows.  Saskatchewan (Jason Ackerman of Regina), Newfoundland/Labrador (Matthew Blandford of St. John’s), Alberta (Karen Powell of Sexsmith) and Prince Edward Island (Kyle Stevenson of Charlottetown) all finished with 5-6 records. Quebec (Simon Hébert of Baie-Comeau) and New Brunswick (Mary Jane McGuire of Fredericton) were next with 4-7 marks, followed by Northern Ontario (Jordan Chandler of Sudbury) at 3-8 and Yukon/Northwest Territories (Wade Scoffin of Whitehorse) at 1-10. Ten provinces, plus Northern Ontario and Yukon/Northwest Territories, started out last Saturday contesting this 47th edition of the Canadian Mixed.   Alberta leads all provinces with nine wins since the championship began in 1964 in Toronto, while defending champion Manitoba and Saskatchewan are next with eight victories each. The host province has won the championship twice – in 1986 by skip Dave Van Dine in Kamloops and by skip John Epping at the 2006 edition in Whitehorse. In addition to the Canadian title, two players from the winning team will also represent Canada at the 2010 World Mixed Doubles Championship, slated for April 16-24, 2010 in Chelyabinsk, Russia.