Summary of Day 2 - Alberta and Manitoba still on top

Are they talking curling or dinner?

Day 2 opened with Alberta and Manitoba among 5 teams sitting on top of the standings with perfect records of 4-0.  Following closely behind were Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario at 3-1.

Today we witnessed some excellent play and wonderfully creative shots.  

Rank	Team	Win	Losses	Games Played	Plus/Minus
1	Alberta	4	0	4	25
2	Manitoba	4	0	4	16
3	Northern Ontario	3	1	4	9
4	Saskatchewan	3	1	4	3
5	Quebec	2	2	4	14
6	Ontario	2	2	4	10
7	British Columbia	2	2	4	-1
8	Host	0	4	4	-18
9	Nova Scotia	0	4	4	-28
10	Newfoundland	0	4	4	-30

In the first draw of the day, the battle between two winless teams was decisively won by Quebec.  They started strongly and “kept the pedal to the metal” with a treble in the first end and steals of 3, 1, 3 and 1 over the next four ends basically spelling the end of the game for the Host team.

In the battle between two undefeated teams, Alberta delivered better shots than Ontario and came away with the win.

Manitoba takes a look

While these games were being contested, Northern Ontario gave British Columbia its first loss in a fairly decisive fashion. At the same time, Newfoundland was giving Manitoba all it could handle. Newfoundland opened with a pair and neither team could score more than one point in any end; but because of two single steals in ends 5 and 6 Manitoba escaped with a 5-4 win.

After play like this in the morning draw we could hardly wait for the afternoon draw to begin.

To the delight of the spectators, Draw 4 in the afternoon did not disappoint and even though the scores in two games do not seem to indicate it, players in all five games often received spontaneous recognition of their excellent shot making skills.

Quebec and Alberta easily won their games on the scoreboard but they had to overcome some fine play by their opponents, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland respectively. Quebec came on strong in the last half of its game against Nova Scotia for a decisive win whereas Alberta started strongly with a pair of fours in ends one and three.

Joanne MacDonald, NL

Northern Ontario defeated the Host team by one point in the battle of the two teams from the North of Ontario.  At the same time Manitoba made large scores of 3 and 4 in the opening and closing ends to defeat British Columbia 8-4 in a game that was much closer than the score indicates. Two beautiful take outs by Manitoba's vice set up an exciting finish for his skip to remove the opposing skip’s last rock.

A final rock draw in the 8^th end by the Ontario skip forced Saskatchewan into an extra end. Saskatchewan put a rock on the button and after a series of guards were thrown up all the Ontario skip had left was an angle raise take out which he VERY narrowly missed.

It will be difficult to top the play we experienced today but we are all excited to find out if it can be done. After almost half the games have been played two teams, Alberta and Manitoba, clearly stand atop the leader board.