Rink carries P.E.I. hopes

The Bill Hope rink from Charlottetown will be representing P.E.I. at the Canadian mixed curling championships, which begin Saturday in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

Other members of the Hope rink are Sandra Hope, Jeff Gallant and Shelley Ebbett.

Bill Hope skipped Ontario to victory at the 1968 Canadian junior championships.

The P.E.I. opens against Northern Ontario on Saturday at 7 p.m. AT and will play its second game on Sunday at 11 a.m. against Saskatchewan.

The mixed championship which will be held Nov. 8-15, brings together 12 teams, representing the 10 provinces plus Northern Ontario and the Territories.

This will be the first time a national sport championship will be staged in Iqaluit.

Among the skips competing in Iqaluit, which is located approximately 2,000 kilometres north of Ottawa, is Nova Scotias Mark Dacey, who won the 2004 Brier in Saskatoon and finished third at the 2004 worlds in Gävle, Sweden.

Dacey, along with his wife, Heather Smith-Dacey, who plays third, teamed to win the 2002 Canadian mixed in Halifax.

It was the second mixed win for Smith-Dacey, a former Canadian junior champion (1991), who won her first mixed title as third for New Brunswicks Grant Odishaw in 1994 in Leduc, Alta.

Other skips include Ontarios Wayne Tuck, who finished third to Dacey in 2002 and British Columbias Greg Monkman, runner-up at the 1982 Brier.

(Results and schedule available at www.peicurling.com or www.seasonofchampions.ca/2009mixed.)