Winnipeg’s Pembina Curling Club will host the third of three carry-over provincial championship events to be played this fall when the 2021 Strathcona Trust Senior Men’s and CurlManitoba Senior Women’s Curling Championships take place this weekend. The two championships get underway Friday morning at the Pembina Curling Club.
The dual Senior Championships come on the heels of a very successful double Club Championships event last weekend in Brandon and the Mixed Championship earlier at the Granite.
The championships are replacement events for the 2020-21 season championships which had to be postponed during last curling season. They represent an opportunity to re-ignite excitement and interest in curling among curlers and fans.
“The response of the curlers last week and this and the response of fans who filled the Brandon Curling Club last weekend tell us this was the right way for us to kick off the new curling season,” says CurlManitoba Executive Director Craig Baker.
“It is exciting for us to be able to provide championship curling entertainment and I look forward to seeing a full-house of Winnipeg curling fans at Pembina this weekend.”
The two skips who have won five of the last six championships are in the Pembina Strathcona Senior Men’s field. Dave Boehmer, who skipped the last three champion teams, returns to defend the title with a Granite team which includes Dean Dunstone, Graham Freeman and Bruce Wyche. 2015 World Senior Silver Medallist Randy Neufeld (La Salle) will compete with his 2015 and 2016 team intact. A third notable champion is Mark Franklin, who won the 2016, ’17, and ’18 Manitoba Masters titles, skipping another Granite foursome.
Among the challengers are Hamiota’s Dale Brooks, a member of Brent Strachan’s 2009 Senior champion team, Bill Menzies (Granite) who was on Franklin’s Masters champion team in 2018 and won the Seniors with Lionel Walz in 2007, and Neil Okamura (Pembina) who was a member of Gord McTavish Masters champion team in 2019.
In the CurlManitoba Senior Women’s, two-time defending champion Terry Ursel (Neepawa) returns with her team intact to defend the title. Ursel also won in 2017 with a different team. Challenging Ursel are 2015 & 2018 champion Kim Link (East St. Paul), 2012 champion Laurie Deprez (Stonewall), Maureen Bonar who was at third for Lois Fowler’s World Senior Champion team, and the 2016 champion team skipped by Sandra Cowling (Hamiota),
The Strathcona Senior Men’s, which has attracted 19 entries, will begin Friday, November 5 at 9AM and run through to the final game scheduled for 2PM on Tuesday, November 9. The CurlManitoba Senior Women’s, which has attracted seven entries, will begin Friday, November 5 at 9AM and run through to the final game scheduled for 2PM on Monday, November 8.
