If revenge is a dish best served cold, what better place to do it than on a sheet of curling ice?
Vernon’s Kelsey Powell rink won the B.C. Club Curling title Sunday, April 5, at the Vancouver Curling Club, defeating the Diane Gushulak rink from the Royal City Club in New Westminster 4-3 in the final.
The win avenged a 7-4 loss to the Gushulak quartet in the final game of the preliminary round.
Powell – backed by third Falon Chretien, second Alyssa Kyllo, lead Jaelyn Cotter, and coach Doug Dalziel – took control of the final coming out of the fourth-end break with a steal of two points for a 3-1 lead.
Gushulak tied the game with single points in the sixth and seventh ends before Powell scored one with the hammer in the final end to capture the provincial title.
“We knew we had a chance to do well, but I’m not sure any of us believed winning the event would happen. It did, and we’re so happy we did it,” said Powell, a passenger in the vehicle on the way home Sunday night as Kyllo did the driving. The team, she said, kept looking at one another, proud of their accomplishment.
“We knew we would be in for a grind against Diane, we knew it would be a close game, we just had to look for opportunities and take advantage when they arose.”
The Vernon rink – champions of the Wednesday night women’s league at their home club – will now represent B.C. at the Canadian Club Championships Nov. 23 to 29 in St. Thomas, Ont., 30 minutes south of London, and will have their coach with them for nationals.
Dalziel missed the provincials due to a family matter, but talked to his team before and after every game.
The Powell quartet qualified for the women’s playoffs by finishing tied for second in the six-team field (top three teams advanced to the playoffs) with a record of 3-2, just one game behind Gushulak, who received a bye to the final.
Each team has a draw-to-the-button competition before each game to determine who has last rock, and the team’s overall draw to the button records are kept to help with tiebreakers. The Powell squad’s draws got them second place – their draw records at the Prestige Hotels and Resorts Curling Classic at the Vernon club Oct. 3 to 5, 2025, kept them out of the event’s playoffs.
Powell opened the tournament with a 7-4 loss to Cynthia Lu of Campbell River, a game played with only three of the team. Cotter flew to Vancouver and arrived during the match. The team then rattled off three consecutive wins – 8-0 over CJ Jackson of Royal City; 9-1 against Leeny Adelsberger of Vancouver’s Marpole Curling Club; and 4-3 over Sandra Comadina of Royal City – before the loss to Gushulak.
The Vernon team faced Comadina in the semifinal and advanced to the final with a 10-3, seven-end victory. Powell led 6-1 going into the sixth end. The Royal City opponents answered with a deuce before Powell forced handshakes by scoring four in the seventh.
“We all had our ups and downs during the tournament, and we discovered that playing with three people in a fun and casual atmosphere, like in league play, is fun, that’s the whole point,” said Powell. “Playing with three curlers in a provincial tournament is not. We quickly realized we didn’t like it.”
Michael Hiram of the host Vancouver club and his team will join the Vernon squad at the Canadians as the province’s men’s representative.
Hiram rallied from a 3-0 deficit to beat Miles Craig of Victoria 7-6 in the final, stealing the winning point in the eighth and final end.
There were 16 teams in the men’s tournament, including two from the Okanagan.
Matt Tolley of Penticton won his first six games before falling 8-5 to Craig in the final game of the preliminary round. A 6-1 mark was good for a spot in the semifinals, where the Tolley team lost 4-3 to Hiram, who scored a deuce with the hammer in the eighth and final end.
The Kip Greenlaw rink from Osoyoos did not make the playoffs after going 3-4 in the round-robin.