SAULT STE. MARIE, February 5...Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan are tied again for first place in men’s, while Northern Ontario remained perfect in women’s at the 2008 M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors.
Alberta (Aaron Sluchinski of Drayton Valley) climbed into a three-way tie for the lead after whipping New Brunswick, 9-2 in Tuesday evening’s ninth draw. Its record is now 5-1, identical to Ontario (Travis Fanset of St. Thomas) and Saskatchewan (Brennen Jones of Regina), both of whom had byes.
Other scores saw Quebec (William Dion of Drummondville) defeat Newfoundland and Labrador, 7-3, Yukon (Thomas Scoffin of Whitehorse) edge rival Northwest Territories, 9-8, Northern Ontario (Kory Carr of Thunder Bay) clip Prince Edward Island, 6-4, stealing a deuce in the 11th end and Nova Scotia (Kelsey Amero of Halifax) winning its first game by eclipsing British Columbia, 8-7, also in an extra end.
Behind the three leaders are three others at 4-2: British Columbia (Jay Wakefield of New Westminster), Northern Ontario and Quebec.
It was a familiar story on the women’s side, as Northern Ontario (Ashley Miharija of Thunder Bay) continued to roll, now at 6-0, although it was pushed to an extra end before edging Prince Edward Island, 9-8. Northern Ontario has never won a Canadian junior women’s crown.
Manitoba (Kaitlyn Lawes of Winnipeg) had a bye to remain the runner-up at 5-1, while three teams are now tied for third with 4-2 marks….Alberta (Maria Bushell of Calgary), Nova Scotia (Danielle Parsons of Halifax) and Saskatchewan (Stephanie McVicar of Saskatoon), which also had an evening bye.
In other games, Newfoundland and Labrador (Julie Devereaux of St. John’s) took a deuce in the 10th end to defeat Quebec, 8-6, New Brunswick (Mary Jane McGuire of Fredericton) beat Alberta, 7-3, Northwest Territories (Valiso Aho of Yellowknife) won its first game, 8-5 over Yukon, while Nova Scotia prevailed over British Columbia, 5-4.
Round robin play continues at both Soo Curlers Association and Tarentorus Sports Club through Friday, with draw times at 9:00 am, 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm ET.
At the conclusion of the round robin, the first place teams advance to their respective finals on Sunday, while the second and third place teams meet in semi-finals on Saturday evening.
Both finals at Soo Curlers Association will be televised live across Canada on CBC-TV. The women’s final will start at 12 noon, with the men’s final beginning at 1:30 pm ET. The winners will then represent Canada at the world junior curling championships, March 1-9 in Östersund, Sweden. Canada has won a leading 16 world junior men’s titles since 1975 and eight women’s crowns since 1988.
Alberta leads all provinces with 15 junior men’s titles, while Saskatchewan is next with 13. Northern Ontario has won four times, the last by Jeff Currie in 1996 in Edmonton. Saskatchewan has won a leading 10 Canadian junior women’s crowns since the event began in 1971 in Vancouver.
CurlTV (www.curltv.com) is also providing extensive event coverage of the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors to its subscribers.
-30- |
