The 53rd annual Edmonton and area Tournament of Champions starts next week for the President’s Cup playoff winners at the St. Albert Curling Club.
The men’s and mixed rinks curl at 8:45 p.m. Monday and the women’s rink sweeps into action at 8:45 p.m. Tuesday at the Edmonton Garrison Memorial Golf & Curling Club.
The Jamie King team plays the Avonair in the men’s draw, Doug McLennan’s team is up against the Thistle in the mixed draw and Lauren Jenkyns’ team is on the ice against the Shamrock or Jasper Place in the women’s draw.
The next game for King is 6 p.m. Tuesday against Jasper Place or 8:45 p.m. Wednesday in the B event.
McLennan will curl at 6 p.m. Tuesday against the Granite or 8:45 p.m. Wednesday in the B event.
Jenkyns will play at 6 p.m. Thursday in one of two A qualifiers or 6 p.m. Wednesday in the B event.
Four teams in each of the men’s, mixed and women’s brackets advance to the semifinals at 1 p.m. Saturday. The finals are 1 p.m. Sunday.
King won the Tournament of Champions in 2006, 2011 and 2013 and was the 2009 finalist.
Previous men’s champions from St. Albert include Roger Comeau (1973), Gerry Dux (1980), Jim Lait (1983) and Dan Holowaychuk (1989).
McLennan is the defending mixed champion, 2010 winner and finalist in 2013 and 2014.
Jenkyns was last year’s finalist after winning in 2014, the first city crown for a St. Albert women’s team since 2010 when teammate Kathy Piper was the skip. Cathy King was the inaugural 1993 women’s champion curling out of St. Albert.
The St. Albert Seniors Slo-Pitch Recreational League is up to bat next week for preseason practice at Willoughby diamond in Woodlands.
The weekly sessions are Mondays and Wednesdays, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m.
The season opener is May 2 at 9:30 a.m. at Willoughby.
More than 30 co-ed players have signed up for the new 55-plus league of shinny ball. There are no competitive teams, managers or coaches. Attempts will be made to keep the teams balanced. No score is kept and rules are modified for safety and fun. Teams will self-umpire their games.
The fee is $100 per person.
Contact [email protected] or 780-460-1041 for more information.
The sixth annual Leading Edge RunWild is a transition year for the St. Albert event on May 15.
Organizers are focusing solely on youth involvement after the temporary loss of their race-day headquarters at the St. Albert 50+ Club and construction has impacted the start/finish staging area and logistics of the routes so the half-marathon and 10- and five-kilometre races will be not be held this year.
However, the Wildones Kids MaraFun is still good to go at Lions Park.
Last year, elementary school students completed the last 1.6 km of their very own 42-km marathon, starting at their schools by running or walking one km at a time leading up to RunWild.
The MaraFun program was presented in 14 schools in the Capital Region in 2015 while averaging 575 kids per year, as well as 1,850 runners in RunWild.
The MaraFun online registration is May 2 through www.runwild.ca.
Since 2011, RunWild has raised more than $350,000 for two charities: the Zebra Child Protection Centre and the St. Albert 50+ Club.
The following St. Albert females were selected to Basketball Alberta’s provincial teams.
U17: Alesha Stanley of the Paul Kane Blues.
U16: Abby Morrison of the St. Albert Skyhawks and Annika Steele of Paul Kane.
U15: Isabella Cuciz, Brooke Froment, Kaitlyn Kluttig, Aine Murphy, Ella Stanley and Kenzie Thera of the 27-0 midget A provincial champion St. Albert SLAM.
Cuciz, Froment, Murphy and Thera are expected to play their high school basketball with the Skyhawks next season and Kluttig and Ella Stanley will hoop it up at Paul Kane.
Meanwhile, Ella Stanley of the two-time reigning SAPEC Tier I city champion Lorne Akins Gators was honoured as the Alberta Shooting Stars’ northern Alberta junior high player of the year.
Allie Hunder of Paul Kane was also the Grade 11 Alberta Shooting Stars’ all-star game MVP.
Also, several players with Paul Kane connections are playing for spring teams with the University of Alberta Junior Pandas (Bronwen Barter and Alesha Stanley on U17) and MacEwan University Griffins (Hunder and Steele on U17 and Ella Stanley on U15).
The Edmonton Rural Bantam AA Hockey League final between the St. Albert Bears and Beaumont Braves went down to the wire Tuesday in Leduc.
The Braves struck twice on the power play in the 4-2 victory in the deciding game in the best-of-three series.
The Braves posted period leads of 2-1 and 3-1.
Langley Kruggel pulled the Bears to within one at 3-2 on the power play with 7:27 remaining and assisted on Layne Amyotte’s goal near the end of the first.
The Bears were outshot 32-20 and Brady Kobitowich was in net.
The Braves evened the series in Monday’s 3-0 decision at Akinsdale Arena. Game two was scoreless until the third period and the last goal was an empty netter.
Shots were 24-23 for the Braves and Kobitowich was between the pipes.
The Bears opened the series with a 2-1 win March 31 in Leduc.
The Bears finished the playoffs at 7-3-1 after placing third at 13-13-6 in the Metro red division
The Braves were 9-2-1 after going 21-6-4 to share top spot in the Rural white division.
Before the playoffs, the teams split two meetings: 2-1 for the Braves in St. Albert and 5-3 for the Bears at provincials in Taber.
