Lucas Punkari
The latest sets of purple hearts were handed out yesterday at the Fort Frances Curling Club as the 2011 senior provincial men’s and women’s champs were crowned after a weekend of tight action.
In the men’s final, Eric Harnden (Sudbury Curling Club) edged Ken Anderson (Red Lake) 6-5 to capture the provincial crown after topping Bruce Munro (Idylwylde) 8-6 in a tie-breaker earlier in the day.
“It feels great,” said Harnden, who actually hails from Sault Ste. Marie but was asked by the other three Sudbury-based members to skip the team this year.
“It was a really good game and we played four really terrific guys in the finals,” Harnden added.
“They [Anderson] are a really good team, and it was a lot of fun to play against them.”
Trailing 5-4 heading into the 10th and final end, Harnden, whose rink included third Dion Dumontelle, second Doug Hong, and lead Mark Borgogelli, just had to draw to the eight-foot with his final stone to score his deuce after Anderson saw his take-out attempt wreck on a guard with his last rock.
Meanwhile, the women’s crown went to Barbara Ward (Port Arthur Curling Club) after she dumped fellow clubmate Barb McEwen 8-1 in just seven ends.
The win marks the third time that Ward will be heading to the Canadian senior championships, which will be held in Digby, N.S. on March 19-26.
“We’re extremely excited,” enthused Ward, whose team consists of third Janice Atkinson, second Jan Alexander, and lead Vicki Boland.
“It was a tough field this weekend and there were many teams here that could have accomplished what we were able to do,” added Ward, who also advanced to the nationals in 2008 and 2009.
Judy LaBelle’s local foursome finished the round-robin with a 3-3 mark, which put them into a four-way tie-breaker situation to determine who would face Ward in the final.
But LaBelle was knocked out of the running after losing her first tie-breaker game 8-5 to Roma Lundgren (Idylwylde).
Roz Broman also represented the Fort Frances Curling Club in the ladies’ field, but missed out on the playoffs after going 2-4 record during the round-robin.
