CALGARY, November 15…The round robin of the Canadian Mixed Curling Championship concluded Thursday morning at the Calgary Curling Club.

Alberta, skipped by Dean Ross of Calgary, finished with a 10-1 record, after edging Newfoundland and Labrador, 7-6 in Draw 11 and advances directly to Friday’s final at 1:00 pm MT/3:00 pm ET.

Ontario, skipped by Bob Turcotte of Toronto, wound up in second spot with an 8-3 record, after beating New Brunswick, 11-6.   Ontario goes to Thursday night’s semi-final at 6:00 pm MT to await the winner of a tiebreaker for third place at 1:00 pm MT between Nova Scotia and Quebec, both of whom finished with 7-4 records.

Quebec, skipped by Simon Dupuis of Thurso, qualified for the tiebreaker by defeating Yukon/Northwest Territories, 7-5, while Nova Scotia, skipped by Peter Burgess of Truro, needed a deuce in the 10th end to outlast Saskatchewan, 6-4 to also qualify.

Northern Ontario could have made it a threesome in the battle for third, but dropped an 8-7 extra end decision to Manitoba.  The other Draw 11 score saw British Columbia whack Prince Edward Island, 10-3.

Thus, the final standings, after the top four teams, showed British Columbia (Bryan Miki of New Westminster) and Northern Ontario (Mike Assad of Thunder Bay) at 6-5, followed by Manitoba (Reid Carruthers of Winnipeg) at 5-6.

New Brunswick (Jamie Brannen of Fredericton) and Prince Edward Island (Kyle Stevenson of Charlottetown) wound up at 4-7, with Saskatchewan (Ian Mayoh of Debden), Newfoundland and Labrador (Brian Bailey of Corner Brook) and Yukon/Northwest Territories (Wade Scoffin of Whitehorse) tied with 3-8 marks.

Twelve teams, representing the 10 provinces plus separate entries for Northern Ontario and Yukon/Northwest Territories, have been battling for the 2008 Canadian Mixed title since last Saturday. Alberta and Saskatchewan have each won the Mixed a leading eight times since the championship began in 1964 in Toronto.

In addition to winning the Canadian title, two members of the winning team will also compete in the inaugural 2008 World Mixed Doubles Championship, March 9-15 in Vierumäki, Finland.   The team members will decide who will represent Canada at the event.

CurlTV (www.curltv.com) is providing complete coverage of the Mixed to its subscribers.

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