Teams McArdle, Wright and Richter have a date in Salmon Arm next month, after each qualified for the 2017 B.C. Senior curling championships.
The squads, which in part or whole carry a banner for the Royal City Curling Club, found ways to earn their spot to the competition, which goes Feb. 20 to 26.
Both McArdle and Wright crews will be among the eight-team competition on the men’s side; the Richter rink will line up with seven other teams on the women’s draw.
The Wright team features skip Steve Wright, third Neil Houston, second Ernie Daniels, lead Brett Kury and fifth Neil Zambik.
The McArdle foursome includes Royal City icemaker Ken McArdle, third Dean Geiger, second Doug Graham and lead Darin LaFace.
Covering an array of curling clubs from Penticton to Royal City, the Richter rink will contest the senior women’s side led by Penticton-based skip Marilou Richter, third Debbie Jones-
Walker, second Leanne Andrews, lead Pam Cuthbert and fifth Brenda Garvey.
The winning male and female teams will go on to represent B.C. at the 2017 Canadian Senior curling championships in Fredericton, NB.
It’ll be a busy month for McArdle, who pinch-skipped for Victoria’s Neil Dangerfield earlier this month and respectfully helped the Victoria crew advance to the Belairdirect B.C. Men’s curling championships, which runs Feb. 8 to 12 in Abbotsford.
A veteran of seven provincial championships, McArdle will cross stones in Abbotsford with fellow Royal City curlers from Team Tardi (skip Tyler Tardi, third Sterling Middleton, second Jordan Tardi and lead Nicholas Meister), Team Bilesky (skip Andrew Bilesky, third Steve Kopf, second Daniel Wenzek and lead Cameron Watt) and Team Guignard (skip Jeff Guignard, third Chris Faa, second Jeff Sargent and lead Nick Kuit).
l Royal City’s Brent Pierce ventured north and nearly cashed in for the Yukon men’s curling title.
The free agent skip and his teammates pushed it to the limit before falling to Team Solberg in the final in Whitehorse 7-6 on Sunday.
It came down to the final end and the final rock, with Solberg nailing the winner in the 10th end.
Up to that point, Pierce had Solberg’s number, having collected wins in two of three earlier meetings at the championship.
To advance to the final Pierce, whose Yukon-based squad included third Wade Scoffins, second Steve Fecteau and lead Clint Ireland, knocked off two-time defending champion Robert Smallwood 7-3.
