The Golden Ears Winter Club’s team Joannise will get another shot at a provincial championship this year.
The teams have competed, the points have been tallied – and now the province’s leading curling teams have secured their berths to the provincial championships.
Team Joanisse, from Golden Ears Winter Club in Maple Ridge, and Team Geall, from Kelowna Curling Club, were the top-ranked B.C. men’s teams on the Canadian Team Ranking System list.
Team Joanisse was last year’s provincial silver medallist, and the team returns intact. The team features Abbotsford skip Dean Joanisse, third Paul Cseke (Victoria), second Jay Wakefield (Vancouver) and lead John Cullen (Vancouver).
Joanisse is a former Canadian junior champion (1989) and a two-time BC men’s champion (2001, 2007).
The two teams are the first teams to earn berths to the 2018 belairdirect B.C. Men’s Curling Championship, which will be played out at the Parksville Curling Club from Jan. 30-Feb. 4.
The two women’s teams to have qualified are Team Gushulak, from Royal City Curling Club in New Westminster, and Team Brown, from Kamloops Curling Club.
They are the first two teams to qualify for the 2018 Scotties B.C. Women’s Curling Championship, in Victoria from Jan. 2-7.
Gushulak, from Vancouver, is a two-time BC Scotties champion (2004 - with Team Wheatcroft - and 2009 - with Team Mallett). Her third Grace MacInnes was part of the 2009 Mallett team.
Sandra Comadina, from Vancouver, is a BC Mixed champion, while Jessie Sanderson, from Coquitlam, is a two-time BC junior champion and was part of the Van Osch team that went to women’s nationals in 2014.
Team Brown features skip Corryn Brown, third Erin Pincott, second Dezaray Hawes and lead Samantha Fisher. Three of the four players won the BC Junior Women’s Curling Championship last year. Brown, Pincott and Fisher have been curling together in Kamloops for more than a decade and won junior provincials in 2013, 2015 and 2017 (minus Pincott who aged out of junior play before last season).
In 2013 they won the Canadian championship and were able to represent Canada at worlds in Sochi, Russia. Hawes, who lives in Anmore, won junior provincials with Team Daniels in 2016 and Team Brown in 2017.
Tickets for the BC Scotties are available at Victoria Curling Club or online at victoriacurlingclub.com/bc-scotties-tickets/.
Tickets for the belairdirect BC Men’s are available at Parksville Curling Club or online at bcmens.curlbc.ca/tickets/.
The rest of the berths for the men’s and women’s provincial championships are available through open playdowns being held between Dec. 8 and Jan. 7.
Visit www.curlbc.ca/playdowns/ for the qualification information for all categories of play and to see the CTRS standings.