The Quesnel Curling Club hosted its annual St. Patrick’s Day Open Bonspiel March 13-15 to wrap up the season.
This year’s bonspiel saw 18 squads take the ice to compete in the weekend-long event, which has historically been one of the Quesnel Curling Centre’s biggest and longest-running events.
“The St. Paddy’s originally started as our men’s championships, and then we opened it up so that the ladies could take part in it and as of this weekend, I’d say that this bonspiel has been going on for about 65 to 70 years,” said club co-ordinator and bonspiel competitor Dave Plant.
The event was one of the only sporting events to remain scheduled in Quesnel since the COVID-19 outbreak, and while a few teams dropped out of the bonspiel, replacements were found and the event ran smoothly. Plant says everyone who participated had a great time despite all of the sombre news around the world.
“With everything going on in the world and everyone trying to keep it together, it was a pretty good time,” he said. “We had a band on Saturday night and everybody who participated had a good time and it was a lot of fun for our year-end wind up. Most people were very cautious, you know, fist bumping instead of shaking hands and doing their best to keep everything civil.”
The A Event saw Team Plant take on and defeat Team Hedden in the finals. Team Plant came out on fire, scoring one in the first and second ends, followed by three in the third and another one in the fourth to lead Team Hedden 6-0 after four ends. That would be all the points Team Plant needed, as Team Hedden would manage to score back-to-back points in the fifth and sixth but it wouldn’t be enough to stay alive, as they shook hands after the seventh end. Team Plant won the match with a final score of 6-2. Team Plant is made up of skip Dave Plant, third Dean Rubisch, second Ralph Givens and lead Brad Kotzer.
The B Event saw Team Waffle face off against Team Cindric. Team Waffle had the ice figured out perfectly, as they scored three in the first, two in the second and four in the third to take 9-0 lead after three. Team Cindric scored one in the fourth but decided to shake hands, as Team Waffle won the match 9-1. Team Waffle is made up of skip Brady Waffle, third Eric Erikson, second Dave Vatamanuick and lead Mike Pagurut.
The C Event pitted Team Shpak against Team Brown. This match would turn out to be the tightest of the final events, with Team Shpak leading 3-2 after four ends. The two teams would trade points back and forth and end up in a 5-5 tie after the seventh. In the end, it would be Team Brown who came from behind to win the match 7-5. Team Brown is made up of skip Chris Brown, third Jason Kozuchar, second Mark Rookson and lead Shane Goodwin.
READ MORE: Wilf Smith Memorial Curling League Lions Cup Bonspiel a hit
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