by Jeremy Rody
Another weekend and another Island bonspiel gone by. The season is slowly coming to a close but there are still a few weeks left! This past weekend was the annual Providence Bay Curling Club Men’s Bonspiel.
The winners of the 1st event were the Jack White, Mike White, Mike Johnston and Darren Dewar rink. Second place in the 1st event were Lew Lanktree, Todd Bailey, Greg Towns and Rick Gordon.
Winners of the 2nd event were Gord Gilphin, Chris Gordon, Bruce Gordon and Lucas Gilphin. Gord’s son Lucas is 12-years-old and has been a big part of his team’s success this year at Island Bonspiels. Great job Lucas! The runners-up in the 2nd event were Dan Marois, Floyd Orford, Barry Wall and Marv Sloss. Marv Sloss was the oldest participant in the bonspiel at 90 years of age, way to go!
The 3rd event was won by the team of Bob Moise, Doug King, Dave Henderson and Oliver Koski and the runners-up were the Smith Brothers rink of Bob Smith, Blaine Smith, Les Smith and Troy Campbell who have 35+ years of participation in the Providence Bay Bonspiel! Our clubs are lucky to have these curlers that keep coming back to support our bonspiels. Congratulations to all the teams that participated in this year’s Men’s Bonspiel in Providence Bay!
And a special congratulations goes out to Lew Lanktree who made the 1st event final in all five men’s bonspiels on the Island this year. He won in Mindemoya and was runner-up in Manitowaning, Little Current, Gore Bay and Providence Bay. He even won the Providence Bay Meat-spiel in November with a mixed team! At 84-years-old, thisis quite an amazing accomplishment! Todd Bailey was Lew’s right hand man as his vice skip for all five of the men’s bonspiels, Todd said that this year curling with Lew will be one of his fondest memories. Good curling gentlemen and congratulations on being finalists in what we’re calling the ‘Manitoulin Curling Grand Slam!’
This past weekend also saw Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue capture his second Brier in a row, beating Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher 6-4 in the final. Gushue is the first back-to-back winner since Kevin Martin in 2008-09. Gushue’s rink will travel to Las Vegas for the Men’s World Curling Championship taking place from March 31-April 8.
The Women’s World Curling Championships are being hosted close by in North Bay from March 17-25. Jennifer Jones’ team from Manitoba will be representing Canada as they won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts earlier this year. Good luck to Team Jones and Team Gushue at the World Championships.
