GORE BAY—An Elliot Lake-based rink won the annual Gore Bay Curling Club ladies’ bonspiel held this past weekend.
The Danielle McLeod rink won the Doris “Toots” Strain championship trophy in the first event, defeating the Marian Hester rink of Gore Bay in the finals. The Danielle McLeod rink included vice Cathy D’Amato, lead Deb Edwardson and second Jo Anne Matheson. The Marian Hester rink also included Patti Purvis, Carolyn Dearing and Lorraine Hester.
“I would like to thank everyone for coming out this weekend, and piper Dave Beaton for leading all the curlers on the ice,” said Sandi Merrylees, master of ceremonies at the awards presentations held Sunday evening. Mr. Beaton had piped the teams onto the ice in prior to the final games in each event on Sunday.
Ms. Merrylees praised and thanked the 13 sponsors of the bonspiel, pointing to a table of prizes that the sponsors had provided through their support of the event. “We want to thank them for supporting our bonspiel for years.”
“I would also like to thank the ice crew. The ice was exceptional; we are very proud of our ice here and thank the guys that do the work to make sure it is so good,” said Ms. Merrylees. “I would also like to thank Dan (Marois) and his bar crew, Kim (Orford) and the kitchen crew and volunteers, and a big thank you as well to Lorraine Hester for all the decorating and setting up the entertainment for the weekend.”
“Thank you to all the volunteers, we can’t run a bonspiel like this without your support,” said Ms. Merrylees before presenting the trophies to the winners.
Ms. McLeod noted this was the fourth time her rink has played at the Gore Bay bonspiel. She thanked the ice crew, bartenders, kitchen staff and volunteers for all their efforts in putting the event on.
Ms. Merrylees noted that for the second event, a new trophy is being introduced for the winners of his event. “We have a new trophy this year for the second event winners, the Phyllis Smith Memorial Trophy,” she said.
The second event winning team was skipped by Marilyn Proulx, whose rink also included Sue Whynott, Wendy Niven and Nancy Cranston. Upon being presented the Phyllis Smith Memorial Trophy, Ms. Proulx stated, “It is a big honour to win this trophy. We had lots of fun curling with Phyllis over the years. It is an honour to be the first to have our names on this trophy.”
The runner-up in the second event was the Kim Orford rink which also included Sue Case, Barb Armstrong and Lee Chatwell.
Taking first place in the third event was the Melanie Carr rink, including Maureen Dumond, Marilyn Prior and Yvonne Bailey. Runner-up was the Ellen Holroyd rink of Pat MacDonald, Colleen Edwards and Phyllis Cacciotti.
Twenty rinks took part in this year’s bonspiel.
