We’ve got 13 teams signed up for our Wednesday evening Ladder League. Our opening night this week is “Qualifier Night”, where we schedule teams at random to play other teams in order to determine which pool to put them in for Round One. We have an odd number of teams, so, to avoid having one team play twice on Wednesday evening, we have decided to give a bye to the A pool to the team that was in the League last year, and had the most A pool finishes. The Paul Durant rink won two out of the three rounds, but they are not back, so that honour goes to the Mark MacDonald squad, who won the first round last year.

We will normally use three sheets of ice each draw time, with the A and B pools alternating timeslots each week. For qualifier night, though, we will go with four sheets at 6:30, and 2 at 8:30.

Here are the Round One Qualifier Night matchups for Wednesday Oct. 21, as selected at random (using Random.org). The Round One draw is sponsored by Lowther’s Snow Removal.

6:30 pm draw

Ice 1: Kelly Watts vs Gord Peters
Ice 2: Bob Fowler vs   Ray Biagé
Ice 3: Jeff Taylor vs Valerie Acorn
Ice 4: Robert Thibodeau vs  Lew Black

8:30 pm draw

Ice 2: Paul Neima vs Dave Younker
Ice 3: Donald DeWolfe vs Greg Groves

Bye: Mark MacDonald

The winning teams, plus the Mark MacDonald rink, will go to the A pool for Round One, which starts next week, while the runners-up will go to the B pool. The A pool had the early draw the last week of last year, so the B pool will start off with the early draw next week. One team in the A pool will have a bye in the first round. The three teams from the A pool with the lowest points will drop to the B pool after round one, while the top two teams from the B pool will move up, moving the extra team (and the bye) to the B pool for the second round. The A pool will then have the bye in the final round, with three teams moving from B to A, and two from A to B.

Each round will be 7 weeks (each team in the 7 team pool will play all six other teams plus have a bye, while the six teams in the other pool will each play the five other teams, plus play two of the teams a second time). There is one week left over at season end. We’ll  find a use for it later e.g. fill in for a last draw storm day (normally, missed weeks aren’t played)

There are prizes for the winners of both the A and B pools each round.

Team Rosters (please let me know of any roster changes):

Lew Black, Hans Wicki, Hans Anderegg, TBA
Paul Neima, Joe Callaghan, Alan Mason, Jeff Hannah
Bob Fowler, Carl Currie, Thane Thompson, Danny Young
Jeff Taylor, Dylan Sanderson, Cody Dawson, TBA
Kelly Watts, Cathy Handren, Paula Ling, Pam Sweetapple
Greg Groves, Donald Weeks, Marjorie Matthews, TBA
Valerie Acorn, Alan Acorn, Mark Perry, Len Gotell
Gord Peters, Hank Kamphuis, Gerald Dykerman, Pat MacInnis
Robert Thibodeau, Angus Kennedy, Wade Deaken, Ken Monaghan
Ray Biagé, Derek Gallant, Rebecca Rolfe, Derek MacEwen
Dave Younker, Bob MacWilliams, Joe MacMillan, TBA
Donald DeWolfe, Avery Wells, Cameron Jenkins, Nick Johnston
Mark MacDonald, Brad Gardiner, Wayne Dalziel, Wayne Goodwin

Weeks per round (unless number of teams changes)

Round 1: Oct 28,
Nov. 4, 11, 18, 25
Dec. 2, 9

Round 2: Dec. 16, 23
Jan. 6, 13, 20, 27
Feb. 3

Round 3: Feb. 10, 17, 24
Mar. 2, 9, 16, 23

Extra week: Mar 30

Rules (credit: some come from the Ottawa Curling Club’s Ladder League)

• Open semi-competitive league. Any player can play any position, and you can change from game to game.
• 3 game points for a win, 1 game point for a loss, 0 game points for a loss by default. Mark this and your team’s points scored (“score points”) on the scoresheet. In the case of a default, award one score point per end to the winning team. In the case of a tie, award an additional score point for the draw to the button winner. If your score is not marked and you win, you will get one score point more than the losing team. If you lose, you will receive zero score points.
• In the event of a default, the non-defaulting team will receive one score point for each scheduled end.
• To break ties at the end of the round between teams with the same record, the tied teams are ranked by applying the following rules in order until one tie is broken. If a one or more ties remain, the rules are applied to each tie starting from rule 1. The process continues until all ties are broken and all teams are ranked.
  1. The teams are ranked using their head-to-head record against the other teams in the tie.
  2. The teams are ranked using the point differential for their games in the round against the other teams in the tie.
  3. The teams are ranked using the point differential for all the games in the round against all teams.
  4. The teams are ranked using their initial ranking in the round.
• Ties: Decided by skip’s rocks with sweeping (by your team only).
• Avoiding defaults/using spares: At least one regular team member (and three players in total) must be present for the game to count, or else a default is posted.  Spares should not play a higher position than the player replaced.
• Storms: Any games cancelled due to storms, etc. will NOT be played, unless advised otherwise. All subsequent weeks will remain where they were.  Any changes to this will be posted on CornwallCurling.com.
• Teams may reschedule games to a different date and /or time by mutual consent. but ice time is normally hard to find.
• The buzzer will be used to ensure the teams are off the ice within the 2-hour time period.  If the buzzer sounds, teams will complete the current end in play to finish  the game. If tied, the standard draw to the button will then take place.

– Derek MacEwen

Wednesday Night Drawmaster

derek@derekmacewen.com, 569-4437 (H)