In a great twist of fortune, both Invermere’s Senior Women’s and Juvenile Men’s curling teams have qualified for provincials and the B.C. Winter Games, respectively .

In Creston, the juvenile men’s team of Ian Redeker, Sam Gaspar, Logan Powell, Garrett Kashuba, JP Pollard and coach Dave Gaspar claimed a 2-0 series victory over the rival Turgeon rink from Grand Forks in consecutive matches on Saturday, January 7.

“I’m really proud of them, and it’s a great accomplishment for the team,” coach Dave Gaspar said. “The boys were very professional, and they were well played games, and it was very close.”

The scores were 12-5 and 9-8, earning the team a berth in the B.C. Winter Games in Vernon February 23 to 26.

“We’re really quite excited about being able to go to the B.C. Winter Games and represent the zone, and we’ll be working hard in practice for the next six weeks preparing,” Gaspar said. “I think it will be an awesome experience for the boys to be able to take part in these ‘mini-Olympics.'”

As for the Senior Women’s team, they claimed two victories in two games on the same Saturday to avoid playing an elimination match the next morning and claim a spot in the provincial competition.

“Our front end curled really well,” team skip Marilyn Berry said. “Cindy (Stevenson) set us up and I was able to come through with a couple of key draws.”

In their first match they took out the Nichol rink from Castlegar 10-8, and followed that up with a 9-8 win over the Bedard rink from Trail, catapulting them to provincials the week of February 13 in Kelowna.

“We’re really excited to go to Kelowna, and we know the competition will be more difficult there,” Berry said. “We’re excited to get out there and to keep practising.”