Playing to a full house.

Aug 15, 2008 - Shooters staff and officials will be kept busy as the Canadian Championship Amateur 9-Ball Divisions get under way today, with sixty-one competitors in the men's and women's divisions and the snooker round robin continues. This is a very slight decrease in the overall numbers from last year, which was the first year it was held.

Most competitors are from Ontario with a good showing from the east coast and Sean Yee and Dewey Forsberg entered from the west. In the Women's division, New Brunswick's Gladys Kennedy is the sole participant that is not from Ontario.

Winner's of both of these events will win a spot into next year's Canadian 9-Ball Championships in their respective divisions, as well as a portion of the prizes that are up for grabs.

The big winner's in yesterday's round robin were Alain Robidoux, Lester Mianskum, Jonathon Sun and Ed Galati, winning four frames without a loss, taking the lead in their groups. Robidoux and Galati are previous winners in this event, ranked first and second in their groups.

John Morra was one of the few to play two matches today, winning one, four nil, and pushing last year's winner Floyd Ziegler to the decider in the other. While it is still early, John is the current high points leader with a great chance of finishing no worse than second in his group with another match win. Also in Group A, Quebec's Claude Bernatchez was a 4-2 victor in his match with John White.

Alberta's Peter Terpstra overcame Eriks Malderis (Group E) in the final frame as did Rob Waddell with Fern Loyer (Group F), Stephane Martineau with Terry Davidson and Ray Saunders with Dan Kelly. (Group G) Also in Group G, Don Chomiski won his match as did New Brunswick's Jeff Kennedy in Group H.

Tom Finstad gave up only one frame to take the lead in his group as did Kirk Stevens in Group F. Kirk managed to post the current high break of 110 in his match with Ken Shea.

A complete listing of all first day group matches are available in the Round Robin section as well as the amateur 9-ball draws for today's play.