The first three sets of medals were presented Wednesday at the Manitoba 55+ Games Curling underway at the Brandon Curling Club, under the auspices of Active Aging in Manitoba.

The shot of the day was made by Patti Ulrich who, with her Winnipeg team (Tammy Selman, Brenda Michel, Jill Proctor), won the gold medals in the Women 55+ age group division. With her final stone on an extra end, Ulrich hit a stone on the teeline in the 12’ circle and rolled to contact the shot Leanne Haight stone in the four foot. The shot gave the Ulrich foursome the gold medals, undefeated. The Prairie Mountain region team (Leanne Haight, Cheryl Bridges, Judy Robertson, Sherry Mullin) earned the silver medals. Earlier in the day, Norma Purdy and another Winnipeg team (Lori Pelissier, Maria Boyd, Laurie Deprez) received the bronze medals.

In the Women 65+ division, Joyce McDougall’s Prairie Mountain team lost Wednesday afternoon to Bev Atkins and her Southern region team. The win for Atkins forced a sudden-death gold medal game to be played at 9AM Thursday. Earlier Wednesday, Brenda Linski and her Prairie Mountain team (Diane Gouldie, Wenda Turner, Carol Toms) received the bronze medals.

The two men’s age groups (65+ and 75+) each had a pair of entries in a best-of-three playoff format. Both ended in two games. The Men’s 65+ gold medals were won by a team skipped by Brian Lowdon (Prairie Mountain) with Cliff Gouldie, Bob Fraser, and Glen Kyle. The silver medals went to Larry Schroeder, Bill Mamchuk, Dan Beaudoin, Fred Spiring and Stu Marshall (Winnipeg).

The Men 75+ division gold medals were won by Ric Morrison’s Prairie Mountain team (Ron Cruickshank, Reg Sheardown and Alvin Taft) with the silver medals going to Gil Van Daele (Prairie Mountain) – Brian Manns, Rae Hainstock, Ray Smart.

The two-team Mixed competition will wrap up Thursday. Paul Scinocca’s Winnipeg team won the first of a best-of-three over Jim Dowsett and his Prairie Mountain team.

The two 2-person stick divisions will also wrap up Thursday with semi-finals to be played at 9AM, followed by gold and bronze medal games. In the U70 competition, the semi-finalists include Nespor-Lacombe and MacMillan-MacMillan (Interlake), Spiring-Spiring (Winnipeg), and Shoemaker-Drummond (Prairie Mountain), In the 70+ event, the semi-finalists include Hamilton-Friesen and Magnusson-Coutts (Winnipeg), and McCabe-Privat and Dyck-Hedley (Prairie Mountain).