Dan McDonald & Warren Johnson, representing Winnipeg’s St. Vital Curling Club and Nancy Sheppard & Caroline Watt from the Brighton & District Curling Club inOntario are the 2024 gold medalists in the National 2-person Stick Championships. The event wrapped up Sunday, April 21, at Toronto’s Leaside Curling Club.
Johnson & McDonald won the Open Division with a 6-0, four end win over defending champions Keith Bennett & Paul Landry (Lakeshore CC, Nova Scotia). The Open champions finished the event with an 8W-2L record after winning their pool with five wins and two losses, followed by three playoff wins.
Bennett & Landry had won their pool with a 7W-1L record and finished at 9W-2L with the silver medal.
The bronze medal was won by Randy & Ruby Olson (St. Albert, Alberta) with a last game victory over Jim Rouse & Ross MacMillan (Warren, Manitoba). The Olsons had won their pool with a 6W-1L record along with a pair of playoff wins. They lost their semi-final game to Bennett & Landry.
In the Women’s Division gold medal game, Sheppard & Watt scored a dramatic last end win over 2022 Canadian champions Betty Mattson & Audrey Dorey (Wolfeville, NS). Mattson & Dorey had scored a four on the fifth end to lead by two coming home but Sheppard and Watt manufactured their own four coming home to win 8-6 without throwing their final stone.
Sheppard & Watt topped their round-robin pool with a 5W-1L record and won a pair of playoff games to finish the event with seven wins and the single loss. Mattson & Dorey had a 5W-2L record in pool play and split their playoff games to finish with six wins and three losses.
Gail Hayes & Karen Jay (Mayflower CC, Nova Scotia) won the bronze medal game, defeating Bev Schick & Judy Kachkowski (Ft. Rouge CC, Manitoba). Hayes & Jay had to win a tie-breaker game to reach the quarterfinal which they also won. A semi-final loss to Sheppard & Watt put them in the bronze medal game. They had an overall 6W-4L record for the week.
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On the opening day of the championship, the Canadian Stick Curling Association held its annual meeting. President Sherril Minns (New Brunswick) was re-elected to the Board along with Curling Ontario president Rick Thurston, elected to replace Resby Coutts, who has left the board after one term. Britta Spiring (Manitoba), Jean Lamere (Quebec), and Bruce Densmore (Nova Scotia) will continue on the Board of Directors.
In the business portion of the meeting, the meeting approved a motion to limit extreme weight takeout shots at next year’s National championships in Grand Prairie, Alberta. The motion will limit standard hit weight to eight seconds (hog-to-hog) with a margin of error allowed to seven seconds.
The motion had been proposed as way of protecting players, hacks and other infrastructure from the risks inherent in the 5-6 second hits being played by some competitors in stick play. It was also suggested that the credibility of the stick delivery is negatively impacted by the extreme weight takeout shots which are not routinely played in other curling, at either club or elite levels.
The motion approved by the annual meeting relates only to the CSCA championship. Other jurisdictions may consider parallel mandates but it is not a requirement.