JANUARY NEWSLETTER - ISSUE # 2

Special points of interest :

•  MIXED BONSPIEL—SIGN UP EARLY—IT'S GOING TO BE FUN !

•  SR. WOMEN'S BONSPIEL—ONLY A COUPLE OF SPOTS LEFT.

•  STICK BONSPIEL—TWO PERSON TEAMS—ONLY $20 EACH.

SENIOR MENS BONSPIEL

Hard-working committee members Bob Lyons, Barrie Blois, Ron Heuman, Warren Grabinsky and their many volunteers should be congratulated for putting together another great Seniors Bonspiel earlier this month. The spiel attracted teams from Penticton, Chase, Salmon Arm, Kelowna, Summerland, Armstrong, Lumby and Enderby as well as 18 local teams.

We certainly proved to be good hosts as you can see that the winners in the various divisions were our out-of-town visitors.

SWAN LAKE DIVISION
1st: Gelowitz - Kelowna
2nd: L. Burns - Amstrong
3rd: Wilson - Kelowna

KALAMALKA DIVISION
1st: Woodward - Kelowna
2nd: J. Burns - Vernon
3rd: B. Schwab - Enderby

SILVER STAR DIVISION
1st: Fortune - Summerland
2nd: Ito - Kelowna
3rd: Kowalski - Chase

Our Wheelchair Curlers are Champs—Again ! Canada wins Worlds International warm-up in Germany

Canadian Chris Daw skipped his Torino gold medallists (which includes our Sonja Gaudet and Gerry Austgarden) to victory in an international bonspiel in Donaueschingen, Germany, beating Team Tschechei from the Czech Republic. Denmark took 3rd and Team Canada 2 (featurning Vernon's Ina Forrest) , who had never played together before, placed 4th.

The competition format awarded 2 point for a win, one for a draw, and one for each end and each point scored. For each of the 4 preliminary rounds, teams were ranked, i playing 2, 3 playing 4 and so on. For the medal rounds, #1 Czech Republic played #4 Team Canada2 in one semi-final and #3 Denmark played # Team Canada1 in the other. The final was won by Team Canada1, the Czechs taking silver and the Danes bronze.
Sonja, Gerry, and Ina as members of Team Canada head off to Sweden for the World Wheelchair Championship—February 17—24

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Congratulations to winners of the Hobbs/McAllister Zone held last week in Armstrong: RON HEUMAN, ERIC FELL, TONY POWLS & DENNIS DUNCAN . They now advance to the Provincial Masters in Tsawwassen at the end of February.

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•  FORD WORLD 2008 HIRES TOBY OSWALD-FELKER AS EVENT COORDINATOR

The 2008 Ford World Women's Curling Championship committee are up and running—and the enthusiasm is evident around the club . Chairman Rob Pringle has vice-chairs in place and each of these people will be busy filling out their volunteer rosters soon. Watch around the club for the VOLUNTEER REGISTRATION FORM —it should be ready in the next week or so.

They have opened an office downtown (3304-30th Ave.) under the direction of Event Coordinator Toby Oswald-Felker —you may remember her as a volunteer at the 2004 Canadian Seniors. The excitement builds…….be sure to be a part of it!

WOW—WHAT A ROAD TRIP

The Karuizawa International Commerative Competition is an event created by the Japan Curling Association to commemorate the 1998 Winter Olympic Curling Games which were held in the same town. Based on the World Championships of the prior year the JCA invites 5 international men's and 5 international women's teams to compete. They add 3 Japanese teams and both genders compete in a full 8 team round robin with playoffs. There is no prize purse but bear in mind they put on a first class event. Competition varies from year to year dependent upon the teams sent from other countries. The CCA chose to use this event to provide the La Releve athletes international experience to teams that may be a year or two away from their own first international competition.

The women's side will be represented by the Jo-Ann Rizzo's team from Ontario. Jo-Ann and her team of Julie Reddick, Leigh Armstrong and Stephanie Leachman, all three of the latter La Releve athletes, have qualified for the program in their first year as a team.

Qualifying a men's team is always a concern as the trip falls directly in the middle of a number of provincial playdowns and Grand Slam play. The CCA announced that T.J. Perepolkin's team from British Columbia will be representing Canada, T.J. is joined by his teammates Deane Horning , Tyrel Griffith and La Releve spare Brendan Willis .

The CCA is pleased to have six La Releve athletes participate in this international competition—it is definitely a bonus for the program and will hopefully provide these young athletes and their teams experience to draw on in future competition.

Trevor Billows, Evan Lemiski, Connor Simpson, Zach Coates, and Riley Block represented Fulton Secondary very well in the North Zone Curling Playdowns January 6th and 7th in Kamloops. The team placed 3rd overall, losing a close game in the B-final. The team was ably coached by Darren Ouchi from the Vernon Curling Club and Bruce Cummings was the teacher-sponsor.

Vernon Secondary was also represented in the Zone playdowns and did very well., winning two games. Skip, Colby Nowlin and his teammates Chad Kyllo, John Bigsby, Danial Campbell and 5th Cory Hodgson are coached by Scott Kyllo and Steve Campbell. Their teacher sponsor is Brad Kuhn (a former High School champion).

See the hard copy of this newslwtter at the curling club

– complete with photos!