The Pomeroy Inn & Suites Peace Curling Tour wraps up this weekend with a large contingent of Dawson Creek rinks crowding the field of the Tour Championships in Sexsmith Jan. 18 -20.
Four rinks from the Mile Zero City will fill the eight-team draw of the SunLife Financial Competitive Division Championship with action getting underway Friday.
Tracy Steinke, Jordan Steinke, Jeff Ginter and Darrel Veiner, all of Dawson Creek, qualified for the event after earning enough points on the tour circuit. Curlers are awarded 12 points for a tour win; 10 for a finals appearance; eight for reaching the semifinals and so on down the line. Three points are also awarded for curlers that attended all scheduled tour events.
Tracy Steinke’s rink of third Mark Heartt, second Stefan Pavlis and lead Aaron Stock was the top Dawson Creek rink with 23 points after reaching the semifinals of the Rhayson Contracting Tidy Trucking Fort Motors Cash Spiel in Fort St. John and the Mile Zero Cash Spiel at the Dawson Creek Curling Club. Steinke also earned points for a quarter-final placing at the other leg of the tour, the GP Cash Spiel.
His 23 points put Steinke in third behind second-place Graham Powell (31 points) and Kurt Balderston, the tour leader with 35. He will face Sexsmith’s Daylan Vavrek in the first round of the double-elimination playoff draw.
Jordan Steinke reached the Tour Championships with back-to-back tour finals appearances in Fort St. John and Dawson Creek. His rink of third Jason Ginter, second Tristan Steinke and lead Brett Winfield lost to Powell on his home-ice late in November to Graham Powell and fell to Balderston at the Rhyason ‘spiel.
Steinke will take on Grande Prairie’s Mark Pillsworth in the first round. Pillsworth placed fourth overall in the tour standings finishing with 21 points.
Ginter’s rink of third Carsten Sturmway, second Alex Wolfe, and lead Brad Skytte will take on Powell, and Veiner will face three-time defending champion Balderston.
Veiner and his crew of third Doug Kimmie, second Sterling Middleton and lead Kyle Kimmie was the last to rink qualify after they downed Mark Zahacy’s rink 7-4 in a tiebreaker match.
The first rocks fly at 5:00 p.m. on Friday at the Sexsmith Curling Club. Play concludes with the finals on Sunday.
