The 2024 Kenmac Energy Bonspiel is FULL!

Draw schedule and teams are posted below – we are looking forward to a wonderful weekend of fun with everyone.

You can pay your $40 registration fee (cash only please) before the first draw on Friday night at the door.  

Teams are as follows:

Click her for a downloadable PDF of the draw schedule:  2024 Kenmac – draw

Registration is now open for the 2023-2024 Club Championship – with the winners advancing to the Provincial Championship in March. 

Cost is $120/team and you can register at the Club or by sending the club manager an email. 

Format will be double knockout.

Registration deadline is January 19th.

We are opening the 50/50 PAY FOR THE SEASON back up for TWO WEEKS ONLY!

If you are choosing the pre-pay the total amount due is (CASH ONLY):

• Before draw on Thursday, January 4th:  $28
• Before draw on Thursday, January 11th: $26

You can pay the bartender at the bar!

For those wanting a more in-depth introduction to curling than our pre-season introductory Learn to Curl sessions, we now offer an 8-Week Adult Learn to Curl Program that will introduce you to the sport of curling and is designed for beginning curlers, those returning to the sport after time off, or newer curlers looking to improve their game!

While many people feel comfortable joining in one of our recreational leagues right out of the pre-season introductory Learn to Curl sessions, we found that some new curlers weren’t quite ready to make the jump into a league – so we have created this new program to fill that gap.  

Each session will include off-ice instruction and also on-ice instruction and activities – including drills, mini-games, etc. As the weeks progress more and more time will be spent learning through playing in games. This is an excellent “follow-up” to our introductory pre-season Learn to Curl events, but participation in that event is NOT required to join this program.

The program will run on Sundays from January 28th through March 24th from 4:30pm – 6:00pm (NOTE: There won’t be any sessions on February 25th.

This program costs $95 + HST + CurlPEI fees for a total of $127.25. NOTE: CurlPEI fees include insurance coverage in case of accidents, falls, etc.

Limit of 32 curlers.

Please register by Thursday, January 18th at 5:00pm online at cornwall.curling.io, by contacting the Club at 902-566-4427 during business hours, or by sending an email with your phone contact information to manager@cornwallcurling.com

Please bring indoor CLEAN footwear and wear loose clothing. CSA-approved helmets (any type) are recommended for beginner curlers but are not mandatory for these age groups.

WHAT: 8-Week Adult Learn to Curl Program
WHEN: 4:30pm – 6:00pm, Sundays between January 28th and March 24th
WHERE: 29 Cornwall Road, Cornwall PE
COST: $95 + HST + CurlPEI fees for a total of $127.25

Check out this information from Curl PEI about Curling Canada’s new U15 Rockfest program. 

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out Craig Savill, 613-797-0902 or Amy Duncan, 902-368-4208.

Rockfest Atlantic – March 28-30, 2024 in Moncton NB.

• Qualifying curlers will spend 3 days in Moncton NB receiving top notch instruction, Skill Development Clinics and competing in Singles Competitions, Triples Curling and the Golden Rockfest. 
• This is a single competition meaning that curlers will compete and qualify as a individuals and not as a team. 
• PEI will be sending at the most 8 curlers (4 females and 4 males).  A minimum score of 10/36 pts must be achieved to be invited to the Atlantic Rockfest.

How to Qualify

• Parents will need to download the Singles Curling App and register their child.  Permission will then need to be given to the instructor who is scoring the athlete.  Since all the curlers are under the age of 15, parental permission is required through the app.  There is currently no other way to enter the scores other than using the Curling Singles App.
• Curl PEI will be hosting 3 in-person qualifying events.  The first will be on Dec 29^th at the Cornwall Curling Club (exact times will depend on the number of entries).   
  • Register online here: https://pe.curling.io/en/products/7397-u15-rockfest-qualifier-cornwall-pe.
  • Stay turned for the other dates in Jan and Feb. 
• The scoring will all be done through Singles Curling App developed by Curl Canada.  (We have attached a scoresheet you can print to have with you just in case something happens when you are scoring or that you can use a back up.)
• Curlers are encouraged to try qualifying as many times as they wish.  Besides the 3 designated in-person qualifying events, curlers can also try to qualify on their own with their coach or Jr Coordinator scoring the athlete (note that parents are not allowed to score their son or daughter).
• Curlers must be 14 or younger as of June 30, 2023.
• Deadline for submitting scores is February 19, 2024.

For More Information about the Singles Curling App or Rockfest

• Download the FAQ: U-15 Regional RockFest events & Singles App FAQ – Nov. 15, 2023
• Here is a link to the recording about Rockfest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjSWd2oA9Qc
• Singles Curling Overview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHSNQ0pLduo
• If you have any Singles App questions, please email: curlingsingles@curling.ca

Matt from @TeamMDunstone has a message for youth curlers, parents, and coaches across the country!

Click here to learn more about RockFest and how you can get involved ? https://t.co/CVWq2uDnwk pic.twitter.com/k5inRwXS7x

— Curling Canada (@CurlingCanada) December 14, 2023

Congratulations to Shirley Lank on being one of SportPEI’s 2023 President’s Award honorees!

The 11th Annual Mixed Doubles Cashspiel was held last Saturday, with Calvin Smith and Terri Wood defeating Chris and Melissa Creighton in the final to take home the title!

Thanks for all those who participated!

The Cornwall Curling Club and its members would like to express our condolences to the family of Eleanor Davies on her recent passing.

Angus, Lorianne, Megan, and Tyler Davies have a long history with the club and the Davies family has been long-time supporters of the club.  

Eleanor’s obituary is posted below:

The Rock’in Raffle Fundraiser draw was held last night between our evening draws and the winners are:

1st Prize ($1000): Paul Neima
2nd Prize ($500): Steve Miller
3rd Prize ($250): Sarah Doak

Congratulations!

Officials numbers will be released soon but the raffle cleared in the neighborhood of $9000 to go towards the purchase of our new rocks.

We are once again collecting non-perishable items for the food bank this year – we’ve already taken a couple of loads from the club already and they were greatly appreciated.  We’ve been told there has been more need and fewer donations this year, so we are continuing to collect! 

If you have any donations please bring them to the club and leave them in the box – we’ll be making another delivery on Monday. 

Congratulations to the Morley Annear Ltd. Mixed Stick Champions, Ruth Stavert & Roy Coffin (with spare, Roddie MacLean) and the Finalists, Myrna and Barry Craswell.

The 11th Annual Mixed Doubles Cashspiel is this weekend at the club and the draw schedule has been set.

We are looking forward to a great day of curling and fun.

Montague and Summerside will be hosting U13 Spiels over the next few weeks – be sure to check them out!

Cornwall’s annual U13 Funspiel is scheduled for February 10th – details to come out in early January.

The Cornwall Curling Club is happy to be hosting the Morley Annear Mixed Stick Curling Championships from December 6th through 8th.

The club schedule will be affected in the following ways:

DAYTIME DROP-IN:
No daytime drop-in curling on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday this week

AFTERNOON STICK DROP-IN:
No afternoon stick drop-in on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday this week

JUNIOR PRACTICES:
No junior practices on Wednesday or Thursday this week.  

Several members of the club are participating in the event so feel free to drop in and check out the action!

The schedule for the event is available here: https://peicurling.com/registration-and-results/#/events/17911/draws

or download a PDF version here: 2024 Mixed Stick Draw

Team Rousseau – Danny Bedard, John Mullin, Mark O’Rourke, and Peter Rousseau. Julie Scales also spared for the team in place of Phillip McInnis.

The club hosted the 11th Annual Masters Plus Funspiel this past Thursday and Friday with teams from our club and across the Maritimes!

Cornwall’s Team Rousseau pulled out a come from behind victory in their final game to secure a 4-0 record and a set of bridge passes for winning the event.

Team Hood from Halifax, was also undefeated but placed second based on the LSD tiebreaker. Don’t feel too bad for them, as they still walked away with four meal tickets to the Red Shores Casino and Racetrack to enjoy on next year’s visit to PEI!

Cornwall’s Team Berry placed third with a 3-1 record and Cornwall’s Team Smith rounded out the top four also with a 3-1 record.

Many thanks to Debbie Rhodenhizer, Linda Fairhurst, Gloria Turner, Paul Dorsey, and Ken Harrott – who stepped up to take over the event this year to ensure it will continue for many years to come.

We are already looking forward to the 12th Annual event next season!

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We would also like to thank all of our prize sponsors!

Jeremy MacAulay takes a mock left hook from Robbie Doherty, at right, at the Cornwall Curling Club on Tuesday, Nov. 14 where the two were playing in the night’s competitive league action. The two are both heavily involved in the Grand Slam of Curling tour this season.
(Bill McGuire photo)

‘Cornwall Connections’ lead PEI’s impact on Grand Slam of Curling Tour this season

Bill McGuire
Publicity Chairman
Cornwall Curling Club

PEI sports fans enjoying the last two Grand Slam of Curling events on Sportsnet were thrilled with the strong Island flavour on the Canada-wide broadcasts. 

Front and centre on each televised draw were the high-octane appearances of well-known PEI sports and entertainment personality Robbie Doherty of Charlottetown as he introduced teams on-ice for that draw and conducted interviews with curlers before, during and after games, plus trophy presentations. 

Doherty, who curls out of the Cornwall Curling Club, is a dynamic young man with a number of career irons in the fire, both on PEI and farther afield. 

Lauren Lenentine of Cornwall, who plays lead stone with Jennifer Jones’s team out of Winnipeg, got lots of attention as well. In late October at the opening GSOC event in Niagara Falls, Lenentine helped Jones capture the Tour Challenge event, defeating former teammate Kaitlyn Lawes in the women’s final. 

Jennifer Jones, Karlee Burgess, Emily Zacharias and Lauren Lenentine celebrate with the HearingLife Tour Challenge trophy on Oct. 22, 2023. (Anil Mungal/GSOC)

Last week at the GSOC Kioti National event in Pictou, NS, with scores of PEI fans in the crowd – who made the short ferry ride across the Northumberland Strait – Jones rolled through the preliminary portion undefeated before dropping a disappointing quarterfinal match to Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland. 

Meanwhile, Brett Gallant of Charlottetown, who played a key role for years as second stone with with multi-Brier winner Brad Gushue of St. John’s, NL, sparked his new Edmonton, AB team, skipped by Brendan Bottcher, to a pair of strong GSOC performances. In Niagara Falls, Bottcher lost in an extra end in the men’s final to Italy’s Joel Retornaz. The same two teams met in semifinal play in Pictou with the red-hot Italian team winning over Bottcher last Saturday night before claiming its second straight GSOC men’s title the next day. 

But there’s even PEI involvement on the GSOC tour. Jeremy MacAulay was more behind the scenes, supporting the Sportsnet broadcast team anchored by Rob Faulds in both events. MacAulay, who has strong Souris connections and now curls out of Cornwall, led his Sports4TV team as it provided live technical curling information into the broadcast booth. 

MacAulay’s company has developed computer technology that’s placed inside the handles of curling stones and sends various data to the broadcast crew, allowing them to relay to the viewer the speed of rocks, various split times, plus other information to show the likely result of delivered rocks. 

He’s busy this week installing microchips into some handles at his home Cornwall club to test more options for the computer technology. 

For Doherty, the Sportsnet job is a dream come true, rubbing elbows on a regular basis with the top men’s and women’s curling teams in the world. He already was the in-venue operations manager for the GSOC events. 

“I’ve been working for them for eight years now,” said Doherty, as he sees his career take off in event management — entertaining and hosting sports and music events. “It’s kind of my real line of work.” 

Doherty is a popular fixture with the Charlottetown Islanders as the energetic game-day host, plus his Old Home Week entertainment duties, other music, entertainment roles and charity events have made him a household name and popular attraction across the province. 

His management team convinced Sportsnet that Doherty’s lively and animated style was just what “we need in curling” so the network brought him in last year, working on the microphone but not introducing the teams. The network liked what they saw and after working together over the summer, promoted him into an expanded role this season for all GSOC events. 

Doherty’s schedule is busy. “I got the children’s show, I’ve got several different musical groups, I do 25 play-by-play games for the Islanders here, I do a lot of work for Universum Media — play-by-play for a lot of Atlantic University Sports — plus in-house games for the Charlottetown Islanders.” 

Doherty enjoys the strong PEI connections he encounters when he works at national curling events.  “I remember I was there when Lauren was playing her first Slam, and it was great to see the difference in her then and now in terms of confidence and success. It was pretty special to see her in her first event, but then in Niagara this year to see her get her first win was very special.” 

He said the Lenentine family are great supporters. “We always meet up out there on tour and catch up and kind of jump around together.” 

On the last Wednesday during the GSOC event in Pictou, “The night ended with 10 Islanders sitting at a table together. That was a shocker,” joked Doherty. 

He knows most of the curlers on tour now, after playing with or against them, and traveling to events in recent years, so he’s not nervous interviewing them. “They’re all pretty good.” 

He was more nervous going on live TV with the countdown “from 5 and we’re live. So that was tough.” But he’s carried it off with a high-powered delivery and no major, or even minor, flubs. 

After the Kioti, Doherty is home for a few weeks until the WFG Masters event Dec. 12-17 in Saskatoon. 

From: https://twitter.com/robbiedoherty

Doherty likes where his career is now. “It’s a great spot for me to work. The Grand Slam is a really great brand for the sport. It’s very forward thinking. We’re not trying to hold on to the old days, bagpipes and beef on a bun. You know, it’s new. We’re trying to bring new life to the sport, spotlight the top teams in the world and promote international teams who all really enjoy coming over to Canada.” 

Doherty said the host cities and volunteers are always great to work with. “It’s really amazing.” He noted that the final weekend in Pictou was a sellout, helped by Island fans pouring across on the ferry. 

“That adds a lot of fun, especially in the smaller towns . . . the whole town gets behind it and is really proud to host.” 

Doherty says he’s often asked if the travel makes it tough on family life, “or when do you ever see your son at home.” But he had breakfast and lunch with his son every day while the tour was in Pictou. “So yeah, I’m away for a couple weeks here and there, but it also trades off and being able to spend a lot more time at home with my family.” 

Sports4TV Happy With First Two Events 

MacAulay said the first two events were a great learning experience. “They were two really great events.  It was interesting being able to meet all the organizers and be able to understand a bit more about how the technology works and learn more on the business side.  

Cornwall Curling Club member Jeremy MacAulay displaying curling rock handles that contain microchip technology to enhance curling broadcasts and sport training.

The rocks used by the GSOC tour are owned by Sportsnet so at the end of each event, the handles containing the computer technology are removed, and safely packed for shipping to the next event. 

 He said there were no glitches for the first two events, and “we’re very happy with how technology has been able to go forward. Each building comes with its own challenges. We usually get there on Sunday evening prior to the event starting on Tuesday, and then we’re live on TV on Thursdays.” 

The Sports4TV crew has several days to understand the building and other factors involved “to make sure we’re ready to go live on Thursday.” 

MacAulay and his team are in the arena watching both the action and the data as the games proceed. “Our data goes to our system and then we feed them that data. They’ll be able to see the data coming on their end and then they choose when or what they want to show. We’re monitoring the broadcast all the time.  

“So, we have our monitor because it’s real time. There’s about a 30 to 45 second delay for TV that we’re watching too. So far, there’s been no issues. 

His company has gotten a lot of on-air plugs from the Sportsnet crew “so that’s something we’re thankful for, obviously from a marketing perspective. They usually talk about us during the second end of the game . . .Talking about this and talking about what the viewer at home is supposed to be looking for. 

“They’re doing a good job with it. We’ve had a couple of viewers through come up to us and talk about it and say, ‘hey, I really like that the technology and I’m able to watch and understand the game more.’” 

The Sportsnet crew make a point not to overwhelm the viewer with too much technical data, while still enjoying all aspects of the game. 

“The app itself is available for anybody at home so they can follow along with their phone. We had a lot of people in the stadium who were following along on the sheet that they were watching. So it didn’t have to be the sheet that was on TV.” 

MacAulay said Sports4TV is constantly working on improving the product and data points. 

 “We did some testing this past week and we’d like to be able to introduce those new elements to the apps as well.” 

MacAulay said there’s another Islander who makes a regular appearance on tour — Pierce Clarke from Kensington who leads the musical entertainment element at Apres Curl, the GSOC’s rebranded party zone between draws, featuring live music and trivia.  

He said the technology has met everyone’s expectations thus far. “I know we’ve been very happy with it.” 

MacAulay said his company is willing to work with any interested parties and would be open to talk if TSN is interested in the technology for its major Season of Champions broadcasts coming up in early February with the Scotties, Brier, junior and world events. 

“The players themselves don’t have access to it during the game and that is pretty important to maintain the integrity of the game, and to make sure the technology doesn’t intrude into the on-ice product. 

The coaches are certainly watching it and expanded data points would certainly make it a valuable practice and learning tool, said MacAulay. 

MacAulay is now good friends with Doherty. “I see Robbie probably four or five times a day on tour. We’re always saying hi and always having a few laughs together. When we were in Niagara, a highlight of the week was Doherty’s uncanny, soaring rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On,’ by Céline Dion. It was perfect. It was love. So, I took a video for very close friends. It was great.” 

Can bootleg copies be far behind? 

The 11th Annual Mixed Doubles Cashspiel will be hosted at the Club on Saturday, December 9th from 8:30am-5:00pm.

Lunch will be provided, there will be cash prizes and each team will play three 6-end games.  

Sign up at the Club or email the club manager at manager@cornwallcuring.com 

Some Cornwall Curling Club members are in Pictou County cheering on another Cornwall Curling Club member as she and her team pursue their second straight Grand Slam title!