Staff
It won’t be back-to-back Jacksons making an appearance on the national curling scene.
Fort Frances skip Lorne Jackson fell 6-1 to Thunder Bay’s Gary Weiss in the final of the Travelers Curling Club provincial championship there yesterday.
Jackson and his rink of third Derek Jackson, second Mark Pederson, and lead Todd Moxham were trying to follow in the footsteps of the skip’s wife, Kathie, who led her quartet to the women’s version of the Travelers’ nationals last year in Ottawa.
The local rink finished tied for second with Chris MacInnes (Timmins) at 3-2 following the six-team round-robin behind Weiss (5-0).
Jackson then beat MacInnes 7-3 in the semi-final Saturday.
But Weiss put up a brick wall on Jackson’s path to gold.
After blanking the first end, Weiss took one in the second and then stole the next three ends to lead 6-0.
Jackson was held to a single in the sixth and decided to shake hands.
Weiss will head to Kelowna, B.C. for the Travelers’ nationals from Nov. 20-26.
Meanwhile, a difficult week ended on a bright note for local resident Lisa Penner at the Canadian senior women’s championship in Digby, N.S.
Representing Northern Ontario, Penner played third for the Kenora-based team of skip Peggy Taylor.
After being relegated to the seeding pool following a 1-5 mark during the preliminary round, Northern Ontario lost its first two games against Manitoba and B.C.
But Taylor’s crew left in style—whipping winless Nunavut rink 11-3 in six ends in their final game Friday.
Northern Ontario finished the week with an overall mark of 2-7 to win up in 13th place, which will be its ranking heading into next year’s nationals.
In the gold-medal game, six-time women’s world champ Colleen Jones gave the host province a thrill when she won her first national seniors’ title with a 5-2 win over Sherry Anderson (Saskatchewan).
Jones now advances to world senior championships next April in Lethbridge, Alta.
On the men’s side, Moxham’s brother, Dean, reached the gold-medal game playing second for Manitoba skip Randy Neufeld before losing to Ontario’s Bryan Cochrane 6-3.
