Two weekends ago, the Nanaimo Curling Centre was home to what is traditionally one of the most popular bonspiels of the local season.
The annual men’s Hangover Bonspiel always manages to attract a healthy number of entries. That’s probably due to a reputation for featuring good food and prizes, competitive curling and certainly plenty of fun and fellowship.
This year a strong field of 40 teams took part, including several from other parts of the Island and the Lower Mainland. The bonspiel is put on by the Sunday morning men’s league, more popularly known as the Hangover League. The organizing committee this year included Chuck Passmore, Ferdie Hobson, Brendan Neff and Randy Brahniuk.
The bonspiel’s A event was sponsored by Midland Tools and it featured an excellent game between two top evenly matched out-of-town teams. The Carey Sulz rink from Parksville and the Wes Craig team from Kerry Park had both gone through the competition undefeated. The teams were tied 5-5 after seven ends of play, but in the final end Sulz scored two to come away with a 7-5 victory.
Third place in A event went to Nanaimo skip Mike Kenefick and his teammates Dean Mousseau, Bob Palynchuk and Mike Pepin.
Sponsor for B event was Mark’s Imports and the final was another see-saw battle. Nanaimo’s Craig MacRae jumped out to a 3-0 lead, then later trailed 6-3 before rallying to tie the game 6-6 after seven ends. But having last rock in the final end allowed Comox Valley skip Steve Whynott to emerge with a 7-6 win. MacRae’s teammates were Louis Cavezza, Paul Merkel and Tom Weinreich.
Third place in B went to the local foursome of Dan Allarie, Doug McGlenen, Bill Shaw and Trevor Shaw.
In the bonspiel’s C event, sponsored by Christensen Collision, the top three teams were all local entries. Another entertaining final saw skip Bob Chlan and his team of Harold Levesque, Mike Leduc and Ken Albrecht need an extra end to edge Brian Scorer, George Duffell, Cliff King and Mark Duffell by an 8-7 count. In third place was the foursome of Dean Meikle, Don Suhan, Barry Suhan and James Sage.
M.J. Chahley Construction Groups sponsored the D event of the competition. In an all-Nanaimo final, Steve Waatainen and his team of Keith Clarke, Keith Balcke and Frank Smith posted a 7-1 victory. Runners-up were Rod Hanson, Travis Fritz, Kurt Jankowski and Lincoln Silk. In third place came the John Reeves team from Delta.
Whatever your sport, a reminder in closing to play your hardest, play fair, and show good sportsmanship.
