Portage College as well as the St. Paul Curling Club hosted the ACAC curling championships this past weekend, with teams coming from NAIT, Augustana, Concordia, Grant Macewan, Lakeland College, Red Deer College, and Olds College. The teams would battle for a Championship win and a chance to go to compete at the Nationals in London Ontario at the end of March.
The competition includes Men’s, Women’s, and mixed, with the top 3 teams in Men’s and Women’s earning a spot in nationals. Jim Knight, Manager of Athletics for Portage College called the weekend a “success” mentioning how the entire St. Paul Campus pitched in to help make everything run smoothly. The culinary arts students provided the meals for the concession Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as well as the meal for the banquet that was held at the college on Saturday for all of the athletes.
The curling began Friday afternoon, with all 6 sheets of ice being utilized throughout the weekend. For each category, it came down to 3 Gold and 3 Bronze medal games on Sunday. In the Men’s Gold, NAIT defeated Augustana 7-2. For Bronze, Red Deer defeated Lakeland College. NAIT, Ausgustana, and Red Deer will all travel to London Ontario to compete in the National championships. On the Women’s side, Grant Macewan brought home gold with an 8-2 win over Red Deer, and NAIT defeated Lakeland for the Bronze medal. The Women’s teams from Grant Macewan, Red Deer and NAIT will also be travelling to London to compete at Nationals.
For the mixed competition, this was their last meet because there isn’t a National competition for mixed teams. Nevertheless, the competition was exciting with Concordia bringing home Gold with an 11-7 win over Olds, and Red Deer defeating NAIT for the bronze medal.
Knight was very happy with how the weekend went as a whole, giving credit to the college and the community and their support. “Our culinary students did a great job on the banquet and concession. We really saw everyone at the college chipping in, it really showcase the college and the community very well. When we put on an event we want to do it first-class and I think we achieved that this weekend with all of the positive comments I received from other coaches.”
Knight also mentioned that the college is looking to apply to host Nationals in 3 years time, and that he has full support from the teams that were competing this past weekend for St. Paul to be the host community. Knight acknowledged that the competition would be great publicity for the college, as well as a great showcase for the entire St. Paul Community.
