A Castlegar team won the annual Masters’ Verzuh-Clay Memorial Bonspiel.
Dan Knutson’s rink won first place in Event A of the bonspiel hosted by the Castlegar Curling Club from Feb 18-20.
Sixteen teams from across the region participated. Five teams were from Castlegar and the other 11 came from Trail, Beaver Valley, Rossland, Grand Forks, Nelson and Vernon.
There were four events with four teams in each, and teams played a five-game round robin.
“In that process we ended up having a crossover, because of only having four teams per event, that only gave them three games so they had to play other teams from other groups,” said Maurice Nowoselski, bonspeil chairman.
The event is named after two well-respected Castlegar curlers. Ralph Clay was a long time curler, ice maker and manager of the rink. At the age of 92, Mike Verzuh was the oldest active curler in BC.
“What we’re doing is honouring those two people that used to be old curlers way back when we started this bonspiel,” said Nowoselski.
This year the bonspiel was held a week later than usual because of a conflict with the 2016 Canadian Direct Insurance BC Men’s Curling Championship in Nelson.
Nowoelski wanted to thank all the teams who came from out of town to participate and supporting the bonspiel.
“It appeared that everybody had a good time and everybody enjoyed it,” he said.
Winners of each event were as follows:
Event A
First: Dan Knutson’s rink, Castlegar
Second: Kevin Oliver’s rink, Trail
Event B
First: Alvin Caron’s rink, Trail
Second: Alec Aojey’s rink, Castlegar
Event C
First: Ken Stephenson’s rink, Beaver Valley
Second: Cliff Tyson’s rink, Trail
Event D
First: Marty Shinizu’s rink, Grand Forks
Second: Ron Garner’s rink, Nelson
