Pictou team takes top honours

From left, New Caledonian Curling Club president Christian Prest stands with skip Don English after his team captured the Ship Hector Curling Cashspiel. With them are mate Mike MacKenzie and second Larry Sutherland holding the championship trophy and lead Andrew LeBlanc.

PICTOU – For Don English, winning is wonderful and winning at home is even better.
English skipped his New Caledonian Curling Club foursome to victory on home ice Sunday in the championship game of the 40th annual Ship Hector Curling Cashspiel.
His foursome of Mike MacKenzie Larry Sutherland and Andrew LeBlanc defeated the Kevin Woodward team from the Halifax Mayflower Club 5-3 to claim the Ship Hector Trophy.
English previously skipped a New Caledonia team to victory in 2001.
“It feels good to win at home,” English said. “It was a good game. The last two ends made all the difference.
Woodward took one point in the first end and stole another in the second to lead 2-0, but English tied the game in the third.
Woodward blanked the fourth end and took a 3-2 lead in the fifth.
But English counted one in the sixth to tie the game.
The Pictou team stole one point in the seventh end when Woodward was slightly long with his final draw and stole another in the eighth when Woodward’s last rock was light and wrecked out front.
“It was a tough one,” Sutherland said.
The game was one of three played Sunday in Pictou.
Bill Hennigar skipped a team from Berwick to a 7-3 win over the Tom LeBlanc team from Pictou by wiping out a 3-1 deficit with two in the fifth before stealing two in the sixth and two in the seventh before running LeBlanc’s team out of rocks in the eighth.
The Brian McCullum team from Sussex, N.B. defeated Doug Campbell’s foursome from the Highlander club in St. Andrew’s N.S. to win the Tweed consolation match in Pictou.
Elsewhere, Jim Nix’s host Bluenose Curling Club team won the Heritage event by defeating John Mason’s Lakeshore club.
In other games at Bluenose, Jeff Crouse won the County event by defeating Abbie Boudreau of Schooner Club, while Gary Casavechia’s Dartmouth team won the Bluenose Trophy by defeating the host club’s all-women’s team skipped by Marion MacAulay.
David Backman of Bridgewater outscored Kris Tynski of Sydney to win the Stellar Trophy, while Carl Langille of Pictou topped Paul Landry of Lakeshore to win the Westville Trophy.
Defending champion Wayne Sangster of Bluenose defeated Bruce Read of Dartmouth to win the Gordon Fraser event, while Mike Cleary defeated of Highlanders defeated Donalda Buckingham to win the Tartan match and Mike Robinson won the Anniversary match by defeating Joe Baker of Mayflower.