MCDONALD, HAYWARD TEAMS WIN MANITOBA JUNIORS

Posted on February 27, 2024 by Resby Coutts

(CurlManitoba Release) CurlManitoba crowned its second three-time Junior Men’s champion in seven years and a rare twice-in-a-season Junior Women’s champion when the Manitoba Juniors wrapped up in Carman Sunday.

Jordon McDonald and his Assiniboine Memorial team (Dallas Burgess, Elias Huminicki, Cameron Olafson, Coach William Lyburn) scored three coming home to defeat Jace Freeman and his Virden team (Ryan Ostrowsky, Nick Senff, Luke Robins, Coach Graham Freeman) in the final game. For the win, McDonald made a delicate shot past a centre line guard to remove the Freeman shot stone in the top of the 12-foot circle.

The teams had split two previous meetings during the event with McDonald winning the “A” qualifying game and Freeman winning the Page 1-2 Playoff game on an extra end.

It is the third consecutive Manitoba Junior Men’s title for McDonald and Huminicki, matching the record set in 2017-2018-2019 by JT Ryan and Jacques Gauthier. It was a second consecutive Manitoba win for Olafson. Burgess was the Northern Ontario champion a year ago.

In the semi-final, Team McDonald defeated Zach Norris and his Morris team. Earlier, they had eliminated Rylan Campbell (West St. Paul) in the Page 3-4 Playoff game.

Hometown fans and the chance to play at home in the Junior Women’s championship could have been stressful for the Shaela Hayward team (Keira Krahn, India Young, Rylie Cox, Coach Diane Hayward, mentor-Coach Ron Westcott) but it proved to be very welcoming instead. The Carman team, recently returned from a gold medal run at the national U-18 Championship, went undefeated to win their second provincial title of the season.

Team Hayward played defending champion Zoey Terrick and her Heather team (Cassidy Dundas, Tessa Terrick, Jensen Letham, Coach Clint Cullen) in the provincial final. They jumped out to a 7-3 lead after six ends but Team Terrick fought back to trail by only one after eight ends. A deuce on the ninth gave the Carman team a 3-point lead coming home and they ran their opponents out of rocks for a 9-6 win.

In the semi-final, Terrick defeated Emily Cherwinski (AMCC). Earlier, Cherwinski had beaten Rylie Buchalter (Heather) in the Page 3-4 Playoff game.

The annual Manitoba Juniors Susan Galbraith Sportsmanship Awards were presented to Maddy Hollins (Team Cherwinski lead) and Tanner Treichel (second on the Nash Sugden Morden team).

The junior championship coaching awards were presented to Albert Bazinet (Coach of Team Norris) and Deb Popovic (Coach of Team Bethany Allan).

DEFENDING CHAMPS WIN WEEKEND CHAMPIONSHIPS

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Resby Coutts

Randy Neufeld’s Master Men defending champion team from La Salle and the Winnipeg Beach Mixed Doubles duo of Kadriana & Colton Lott are repeat winners of their CurlManitoba championships which were staged this weekend in Portage and Beausejour. Team Karen Fallis (Fort Rouge), which won the Master Women championship Sunday, included Maureen Bonar who was also a member of last year’s senior women’s championship team.

l-r Randy Neufeld, Dean Moxham, Peter Nicholls, Darren Oryniak

Monday afternoon in Portage, in the Manitoba’s Credit Unions Master Men’s Championship, Neufeld’s La Salle team (Dean Moxham, Peter Nicholls, Darren Oryniak, Dale Michie) defeated Murray Warren – Brandon (Brian Barker, Terry Warren, Reg Warren, Gary Barker) to retain the title they won a year ago in Thompson.

The final was a close affair, tied 4-4 coming home. Neufeld had the last stone but didn’t have to use it. Neufeld’s double kill with his first stone left him lying two behind a centreline guard, with shot stone biting the four-foot circle. Attempting to bury, Warren contacted the shot stone and left Neufeld the winning point.

The Warren team had been undefeated going into the final game of the 16-team event. They were unbeaten in the round robin and beat Neufeld 6-3 in the Page 1 vs 1 Playoff game. The defending champion Neufeld team set up the re-match with an 8-2 win over Stan Struthers – Pembina in the semi-final. Struthers had eliminated former champion Mark Franklin – Granite in the Page 2 v 2 Playoff game.

r-l Karen Fallis, Maureen Bonar, Lynn Fallis-Kurz, Laurie Ellwood

Earlier on the weekend in Portage, Karen Fallis and her Fort Rouge team (Maureen Bonar, Lynn Fallis-Kurz, Laurie Ellwood) lost the opening game of the double round-robin in the 4-team Master Women’s championship but never lost again. They ran off six consecutive wins, including a final game victory 7-4 over Judy Colwell’s East St. Paul (skip Wendy Nykoluk, Lynn Sandercock, Kathy Isaac) team.

All four members of the winning team are former Manitoba champions. Most recently, former world senior champion Bonar won the 2023 Manitoba Senior Women’s while Fallis & Fallis-Kurz won the 2018 senior women’s and Ellwood won the 2012 senior women’s. All four are also former Manitoba women’s champions as well.

In Beausejour on Monday afternoon, the 18-team Dynasty Mixed Doubles Championship was won by defending champions, and 2018 champions, Kadriana & Colton Lott (Winnipeg Beach) with a final game shutout win over Darcy Robertson and James Kirkness (Assiniboine Memorial).

To reach the final, Lott & Lott defeated the father-daughter duo of William & Mikaylah Lyburn (Granite) 11-5 while Robertson & Kirkness were 7-5 winners over Thomas Dunlop & Katie McKenzie (Stonewall).

Lott & Lott finished the event with a 7W-1L record, losing only an “A” semifinal to Colton Lott’s brother Tanner & Randine Baker (Selkirk).

The two Master Champion teams earn the invitation to compete at the Canadian Masters championship in Chicoutimi, Quebec in early April. The Canadian Mixed Doubles championship is in Fredericton, NB in mid-March.

FALLIS TEAM WINS MASTERS WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP

Posted on February 18, 2024 by Resby Coutts

Karen Fallis and her Fort Rouge team (Maureen Bonar, Lynn Fallis-Kurz, Laurie Ellwood) are the new Manitoba Masters Women’s Champions after defeating the Judy Colwell team 7-4 this afternoon in Portage.

Team Fallis lost their opening game of the double round robin series to Colwell and never lost again – running off six consecutive wins to gain the title.

In the Men’s Championship, the 2-3 crossover games were won by Mark Franklin-Granite (over Morley Walker-Arden) and Stan Struthers-Pembina (7-2 over Mike Mahon-Granite).

Franklin and Struthers will play in the Page Playoff elimination games this evening in Portage. Murray Warren – Brandon (7W-0L) plays Randy Neufeld – La Salle (6W-1L) on the top side of the Page Playoff draw.

The winner of the Warren-Neufeld games goes to the Monday afternoon final while the loser plays the Franklin-Struthers winner Monday morning at 9AM.

MANITOBA’S CREDIT UNIONS MASTERS CHAMPIONSHIPS UNDERWAY: Four teams, one in the Women’s competition and only three in the Men’s championship, are unbeaten after the two-game opening day of the Manitoba’s Credit Unions Masters Championship in Portage.

Randy Neufeld, with sweepers Dean Moxham and Darren Oryniak

In the four team Women’s division, where the teams will play a double round-robin with playoffs, East St. Paul’s Judy Colwell team leads the way with a pair of first day victories. Skipped by Wendy Nykoluk, the leaders defeated Karen Fallis (Fort Rouge) and Deb McCreanor (La Salle) in their two victories. Fallis and McCreanor both have 1W-1L records.

In the Men’s competition, defending champion Randy Neufeld (La Salle) and the Stan Struthers (Pembina) team, with Gord MacKay throwing fourth stones, have 2W-0L records to lead the Asham Group standings board. Former champion Murray Warren (Brandon) has the only 2W-0L record in the Asham Ultra Force Group.

The 16-team Master Men’s championship features three teams from the Granite CC, two each from Brandon, Hamiota and Fort Rouge and single entries from Arden, Burntwood, East St. Paul, La Salle Miami, Stonewall, and Virden.

The teams will play seven games in their 8-team round robin pools.

Playoffs in both the Men’s and Women’s championships will wrap up Sunday afternoon.

Two other sets of provincial jackets and crests will be awarded this weekend as well. The 18-team Dynasty Mixed Doubles Championship begins Friday evening in Beausejour while the 24-team SunLife Financial Manitoba Stick Championship presented by Jim Anton gets underway Friday morning in Morris.

SULKERS-PETERSON WIN MANITOBA STICK CHAMPIONSHIP

Posted on February 18, 2024 by Resby Coutts

l-r Sponsor Jim Anton – Sun Life Financial, champions Harold Peterson & Herb Sulkers, MSCA Director Lynne Rehbein, MSCA President Britta Spiring (MSCA photo)

Herb Sulkers & Harold Peterson, representing the Beausejour Curling Club, are the Manitoba 2-person Stick Champions for 2024. They won the Manitoba championship, and the right to wear the Manitoba jackets in April at the Canadian event in Toronto, Sunday afternoon at Curl Morris.

Sulkers & Peterson played Terry Proctor and Darren MacMillan (Warren) in the championship’s final game. The game turned in the fourth end when Peterson made a draw past his own stone at the top of the rings to freeze to his own shot stone on the back of the button. After a time out to consider options, MacMillan played a runback just missed the contact need to blow the two stones out of the rings and Peterson drew for three to lead 4-2.

Peterson & Sulkers gave up a single on the fifth end and controlled the sixth, and final, end to win without throwing their final stone.

In the semi-finals, Sulkers & Peterson defeated Ross MacMillan & Bev Schick (Warren) while Proctor & MacMillan bested Charlie McCulllough & Wayne Johnston (Carman).

The other four qualifiers included Harold Hamilton & Willie Friesen and Norm Magnusson & Resby Coutts (Fort Rouge), Ralph Nespor & Rob Lacombe (Stonewall), and Jim Rouse & Jim Webster (Warren).

The Canadian Championship will be played April 17-21 at Toronto’s Leaside Curling Club.

TEAM CARRUTHERS BECOMES TEAM MANITOBA

Posted on February 11, 2024 by Resby Coutts

Granite Curling Club’s Team Carruthers (skip Brad Jacobs, Reid Carruthers, Derek Samagalski, Connor Njegovan, coach Rob Meakin) have earned a name change. The team has become Team Manitoba with a pair of wins Sunday in Stonewall to win the 2024 Viterra Championship.

Connor Njegovan, Brad Jacobs, Reid Carruthers, Derek Samagalski with Viterra’s Kent Klimpke (r) and Ray Baloan (l)

The top-seeded Granite foursome had qualified for the championship’s Page Playoff 1 vs 2 game but lost Saturday evening to #3 seed Braden Calvert and his Fort Rouge team.

That dropped them into the Sunday morning semi-final where they defeated the #4 seeded Jordon McDonald – Assiniboine Memorial team (Dallas Burgess, Elias Huminicki, Cam Olafson, William Lyburn).

The final game re-match with Calvert (Corey Chambers, Kyle Kurz, Brendan Bilawka) was tied 3-3 playing the eighth end when Team Carruthers stole a point to lead 4-3. A blanked ninth gave Calvert the hammer coming home but his team was unable to build the end. When skip Brad Jacobs sealed off the draw path to the four foot circle with his last stone, Calvert was faced with a low percentage runback triple kill. No success – Jacobs stole two more for the 6-3 win.

The Granite team will represent Manitoba at the Montana’s Brier in Regina in early March.

Reid Carruthers, who won the Brier and World Championship with Jeff Stoughton in 2011, has participated in 11 previous Briers as Team Manitoba (7), a wild card entry (3), and as an alternate in 2008 when he played his first Brier game.

Derek Samagalski has five Brier appearances as Manitoba champion and three as a wild card entry.

Connor Njegovan has four previous Brier appearances with two each as Team Manitoba and wild card entry.

While skip Brad Jacobs has represented Northern Ontario at the Brier 14 times, it is his first Manitoba championship.

<><><>

PROVINCIAL HIT-DRAW-TAP COMPETITION

Posted on February 11, 2024 by Resby Coutts

The annual Hit-Draw-Tap competition for youth curlers in Manitoba played out Sunday in Stonewall. Earlier this year, 568 young curlers from across Manitoba took part in regional qualifying with the chance to represent their region in the provincial finals on the championship arena ice in Stonewall.

Seven regional representatives from Winnipeg and across Manitoba and a host club competitor participated in three different age categories: 6-8 years old, 9-10 years old, and 11-13 years old.

CurlManitoba organizers and former Manitoba champion Mike McEwen, who acted as the guest announcer, encouraged the kids as they concentrated on their hits, draws, and tap shots. The two older groups played on the full sheet of ice, prepared to championship standards by CurlManitoba’s internationally respected ice technician Greg Ewasko. The youngest group of curlers played “the short game”, shooting from the hack to the near set of rings.

There were trophies for the top three in each group and eight different rural Manitoba communities were represented among the nine trophy winners. Hamiota curlers took home two trophies.

The trophy winners were:

6-8 years:

Ben Smith (Pinawa)
Rowan Zegers (Riverview)
Leah Major (Carman)

9-10 years:

Bramwell Friesen (Winkler)
Jayce Budey (Steinbach)
Sam Rawlings (Hamiota)

11-13 years:

Atiya Jack (East St. Paul)
Ryan Carmicheal (Hamiota)
Jakob Kehler (Ste. Anne)

TEAM CALVERT TO THE VITERRA CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL GAME

Posted on February 10, 2024 by Resby Coutts

Braden Calvert and his Fort Rouge team are a win away from their long dreamed about trip to the Canadian Men’s Curling Championship.

A berth in the Montana’s Brier in Regina will be on the line at 2:30PM Sunday afternoon when Team Calvert plays the winner of the Sunday morning Viterra Championship semi-final between top seeded Team Carruthers and #4 seed Jordon McDonald.

It took an extra end Saturday evening but the #3 seeded Calvert team was an 8-7 last stone winner over Team Carruthers in the Page Playoff 1-2 game. Up 7-5 coming home, Braden Calvert faced three with his last stone draw. He saw that rock slide deep to give the Brad Jacobs-skipped team a steal of two to force the extra end. Their last shot on the extra was an open hit in the four foot facing two and it was a perfect nose hit for the win.

Calvert and Carruthers were the Saturday morning “A” Side qualifers with wins over Ryan Wiebe and Riley Smith respectively.

Jordon McDonald and Jeff Stewart were the “B” side qualifers for the Page Playoff championship round. On the Saturday 2PM draw, McDonald ousted Wiebe and Stewart beat Smith.

The McDonald-Stewart Page 3-4 Playoff game was a tight affair with McDonald making a last stone hit facing two for a 4-3 victory.

The McDonald-Carruthers game is scheduled for 9AM in Stonewall. The winner will pay Calvert at 2:30PM in the final.

RICHTER 3-TIME SPIRING AWARD WINNER

Posted on February 10, 2024 by Resby Coutts

Justin Richter, skip of a Beausejour entry in the 2024 Viterra Championship, has been voted by the curlers as the 2024 recipient of the Pat Spiring Award. It is the second consecutive, and third overall, selection of Richter for the award.

Laurie Macdonell, on behalf of CurlManitoba, presents the 2024 Pat Spiring Award to Justin Richter

The award was established by the family and CurlManitoba back in 2014 in tribute to the memory of Pat Spiring.

The past recipients of the award are:

Pat was respected by his fellow competitors for is on-ice ability, his competitive spirit, his love of the game, and his respect for the traditions and spirit of the sport of curling. Each year, the curlers in the Viterra championship are asked to select a recitpient who embodies those same characteristics.

2024: Justin Richter
2023: Justin Richter
2022: not presented
2021: not presented
2020: William Lyburn
2019: Rob Van Kommer & Cory Barkley
2018: Andrew Wickman
2017: Jason Gunnlaugson
2016: Justin Richter
2015: Kelly Robertson
2014: Kelly Robertson & Allan Lyburn

SHOOTOUT IN STONEWALL, VITERRA CHAMPIONSHIP PLAYOFFS PROVIDE GREAT ENTERTAINMENT

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Resby Coutts

Brad Jacobs was ambushed by Riley Smith early Friday but bounced back to win a pair including an extra end shootout with Jordon McDonald.

Down to eight teams, the 2024 Manitoba Men’s Championship began a new double-knockout playoff round Friday evening in Stonewall and the fans at Stonewall’s Veteran’s Memorial Sports Complex got more than their money’s worth.

The feature match-up was Team Carruthers against the young Jordan McDonald team. In the tenth end, needing a point to tie, McDonald played a runback on a centre guard which killed the two Carruthers counters and moved two more Carruthers stones. They had the one and there was a measure for a pair to win. The measure went Team Carruthers way and the McDonald team built an end on the eleventh which was looking good until Jacobs threw a quadruple take-out hit to lie one. With his final stone, McDonald buried a draw and forced Team Carruthers skip Brad Jacobs to draw the four-foot circle for an 8-7 victory.

In other games Riley Smith also needed an extra end for an 9-8 win over Brett Walter; Ryan Wiebe defeated Greg Todoruk 8-6; and Braden Calvert was a 12-3 winner over Jeff Stewart.

The 9AM Saturday draw will identify the first two qualifiers for the Page Playoff Championship round. Team Carruthers will play Riley Smith and Braden Calvert will play Ryan Wiebe.

The 9AM elimination game matchups will be Greg Todoruk vs Jeff Stewart and Jordon McDonald vs Brett Walter.

The third & fourth championship qualifiers will come from the 2PM draw.

On the Friday 8:30AM draw, the “A” side qualifiers were Riley Smith-Charleswood, with a score of three coming home to beat Team Carruthers-Granite; Ryan Wiebe-Fort Rouge (7-5 over Justin Richter-Beausejour); Braden Calvert-Fort Rouge (5-2 win over Greg Todoruk-Dauphin); and Jordon McDonald-Assiniboine Memorial (6-2 over Brett Walter-AMCC) .

On the Friday 4PM draw, Carruthers (9-2 over Logan Ede-Stonewall), Todoruk (7-0 over Steve Irwin-Brandon), and Walter (9-2 over Cale Dunbar-Brandon) all bounced back to qualify for the playoff round through the “B” side of the draw. Richter was defeated 7-6 by Jeff Stewart-Gladstone.

Prior to the Friday evening draw, CurlManitoba announced the results of the players’ selection as the recipient of the annual Pat Spiring Memorial Award. Justin Richter was the curler chosen, for the second consecutive year, as the one who best exemplifies the late Pat Spiring’s ability, competitive spirit, love of the game, and respect for the traditions & spirit of the sport of curling.

TEAM HAYWARD CONTINUES TO ROLL AT U-18 NATIONALS

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Resby Coutts

Shaela Hayward’s Carman team, the U-18 Manitoba champions, will play at 7:30PM Friday evening with a chance to advance to the U-18 Nationals gold medal game.

The Manitoban’s concluded the round-robin portion of the event with a 4W-2L record abd have won a pair of playoff games since.

The Friday evening game will be against the Nova Scotia team which finished undefeated in the same pool as Team Manitoba. The winner advances to the gold medal game with the loser going to the bronze medal game.