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Calgary Curling Club holds ‘try it’ event to mark the end of the season

Calgary Curling Club holds 'try it' event to mark the end of the season


It’s a popular Canadian pastime, but not many people have played it, so that’s why the Calgary Curling Club opened its doors to guests on Sunday.


The facility, located at 730 Third Street N.W., invited visitors to participate in a friendly bonspiel and experience the sport that has gained recognition through a number of major events, including the Olympics.


“We hope to grow the sport by appealing to those for whom curling may be a new cultural experience,” officials said in a release.


The event, held between 1 and 3:30 p.m., included a basic introduction to curling through some simple instruction followed by a quick game with some experienced players.


More information about the club and its activities can be found online.

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World Curling looking for event hosting bids for next four-year Olympic cycle – World Curling Federation

World Curling looking for event hosting bids for next four-year Olympic cycle - World Curling Federation

The World Curling Federation is looking for Member Associations who would like to host a World Curling event within the next Olympic cycle.

The Federation aims to award events early to allow Local Organising Committee’s as much time as possible to implement events to the best of their ability.

Please note that the Federation can award any events at any time if a suitable bid has been received.

It would be appreciated if letters of intent or complete bids for the 2022–2023 season are received no later than 30 April 2022. Any events for later seasons should be received no later than 31 May 2022.

If you have any questions please send them either to Colin Grahamslaw or Eeva Röthlisberger.

Events that require bids

2022–2023 season with proposed dates

  • World Mixed Doubles Qualification Event 2022 — 3 to 7 December 2022
  • World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2023 — 4 to 11 March 2023
  • World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2023 — 12 to 18 March or 13 to 19 April 2023
  • European Curling Championships C-Division 2023 — 29 April to 6 May 2023

2023–2024 season with proposed dates 

  • World Mixed Curling Championship 2023 — 14 to 21 October 2023
  • Pan-Continental Curling Championships 2023 (A & B Divisions) — 23 to 29 October 2023
  • World Wheelchair-B Curling Championships 2023 — 4 to 11 November 2023
  • Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2023 (A & B Divisions) — 18 to 25 November 2023
  • World Mixed Doubles Qualification Event 2023 — 3 to 7 December 2023
  • World Junior-B Curling Championships 2023 — 8 to 19 December 2023 OR 13 to 21 December 2023
  • World Junior Curling Championships 2024 — 17 to 24 February 2024
  • World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2024 — 2 to 9 March 2024
  • World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2024 — 10 to 16 March or 11 to 17 April 2024
  • World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2024 & World Senior Curling Championships 2024 — 20 to 27 April 2024
  • European Curling Championships C-Division 2024 — 27 April to 4 May 2024

2024–2025 season with proposed dates 

  • World Mixed Curling Championship 2024 — 12 to 19 October 2024
  • Pan-Continental Curling Championships 2024 (A & B Divisions) — 21 to 28 October 2024
  • World Wheelchair-B Curling Championships 2024 — 2 to 9 November 2024
  • Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2024 (A & B Divisions) — 16 to 23 November 2024
  • World Mixed Doubles Qualification Event 2024 — 3 to 7 December 2024
  • World Junior-B Curling Championships 2024 — 8 to 19 December 2024 OR 3 to 11 January 2025
  • World Junior Curling Championships 2025 — 13 to 23 February 2025 (Proposed dates Torino, Italy; Test Event for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games)
  • World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2025 — 1 to 8 March 2025 (Proposed dates Torino, Italy; Test Event for the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games)
  • World Women’s Curling Championship 2025 — 15 to 23 March 2025
  • World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2025 — 9 to 15 March or 10 to 16 April 2024
  • World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2025 & World Senior Curling Championships 2025 — 19 to 26 April 2025
  • European Curling Championships C-Division 2025 — 26 April to 3 May 2025

2025–2026 season with proposed dates 

  • Pre-Olympic Qualification Event (Men & Women) — 17 to 24 October 2025
  • World Mixed Curling Championship 2025 — 11 to 18 October 2025
  • Pan Continental Curling Championships 2025 (A & B Divisions) — 28 October to 2 November 2025
  • Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2024 (A & B Divisions) — 22 to 29 November 2025
  • World Mixed Doubles Qualification Event 2024 — 3 to 7 December 2024
  • World Junior-B Curling Championships 2025 — 3 to 7 December 2025 OR 3 to 10 January 2026
  • Olympic Qualification Event 2025 (Men & Women) — 6 to 13 December 2025
  • Olympic Qualification Event 2025 (Mixed Doubles) — 15 to 20 December 2025
  • World Junior Curling Championships 2026 — 21 to 28 February 2026
  • World Men’s Curling Championship 2026 — 28 March to 5 April 2026
  • World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2026 — 9 to 15 April 2026
  • World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2026 & World Senior Curling Championships 2026 — 18 to 25 April 2025
  • European Curling Championships C-Division 2026 — 25 April to 2 May 2026

Engage with the World Curling Federation on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Weibo and be searching the hashtags #curling

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Quinte Curling Club to host Provincial events

Quinte Curling Club to host Provincial events

Quinte Curling Club to host Provincial events

(Photo submitted: left to right: Kendra Lafleur, Mike Collyer, Sherri-Lynn Collyer and Dave Collyer)

The Quinte Curling Club will host the Ontario Mixed and Senior Mixed Curling championshps from April 13th to the 17th.
Quinte Curling’s Dave Collyer rink will compete for a spot in the national championships.   The team includes Sherri-Lynn Collyer, Mike Collyer and Kendra Lafleur.

The public is welcome to watch with proof of vaccination and a $10 entry fee per day.

A complete schedule will be available on the QCC website: quintecurlingclub.ca.

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WCF moves to bar Russia from curling events

WCF moves to bar Russia from curling events


The World Curling Federation intends to boot Russia from upcoming world curling championships, including the women’s tournament in Prince George, B.C.


Russia is among the 13 countries in the field for the women’s world championship March 19-27 at Prince George’s CN Centre. Russia had yet to declare its representative.


The WCF amended its rules Monday to allow for a team’s removal from any event if the board deems that team’s presence “would damage the event or put the safety of the participants or the good order of the event at risk.”


Member associations have three days to voice their objections to the rule change, the WCF said.


If more than 10 per cent of member associations object to the rule change, it will not be implemented immediately, but instead referred to the WCF’s next general assembly.


The International Olympic Committee urged international sport federations Monday to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from competition in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the assistance Belarus has given Russia to do so.


The International Ice Hockey Federation also met Monday to determine the participation of Russia and Belarus in tournaments. The men’s world under-20 championship will be played in Alberta in August.


This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2022.

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Hockey, Curling Most Popular Olympic Events At Canadian Online Sportsbooks

Rob Schumacher/USA TODAY

The Winter Olympic Games concluded last weekend in Beijing, China, and provincial sportsbooks across Canada were pleasantly surprised with the betting interest in many of the events, especially curling and hockey.

Canadian athletes claimed 26 medals — four gold, eight silver, and 14 bronze — at this year’s Games, trailing only Germany, the Russian Olympic Committee, and Norway in medal count. Curling and hockey have been strong events historically for Canada, but the country only walked away with two medals — a bronze in men’s curling and a gold in women’s hockey — across five disciplines in the two events.

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, over 70% of Canadians — 26.5 million unique viewers — tuned in for coverage of the Winter Olympics. Canadians streamed over 468 million minutes of video content, making it the most-streamed Games ever on the network.

Roughly half of CBC’s Olympic viewers watched an average of 102 minutes each night in prime time for 15 of the 16 days of competition, with numbers drastically dropping off for one night due to the Super Bowl on Feb. 13. The numbers were impressive considering most of the live action from Beijing was overnight across Canadian time zones.

High public interest in the Olympics also translated into a good online sports betting turnout in Canada for the various events. This is the first Olympics for which single-event wagering was permitted across Canada.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, which provides the only legal sports betting option in the province through its PROLINE + platform, is not sharing specific handle numbers, but its communications department told Sports Handle it had “very good customer interest” in the Winter Olympics.

The British Columbia Lottery Corporation also had a successful Olympics with its PlayNow platform, with spokesman Matt Lee crediting the ability to place single-game wagers and an increased number of offerings on more obscure sports such as bobsled and speed skating.

Hockey

Both the men’s and women’s hockey events were, far and away, the most popular events of these Olympics on PROLINE+ despite a number of negative factors, including a lack of NHL participants, unfavorable start times in North America, and a poor finish by Canada’s men’s team, which lost to Sweden in the quarterfinals.

Roughly 2.7 million people watched Team Canada take on Team USA in the women’s hockey gold medal game on Canadian networks, even though the game didn’t start until 11:30 p.m. ET. The game also drew a massive audience in the United States.

“The gold medal game, in particular, was the most popular event of the Games despite its late start time. Sales for this game were 70% more than even the highest men’s game (vs. China) and higher than the average NHL game during this period,” OLG Director of Communications Tony Bitonti said.

Gamblers took the Canadian women on the moneyline at an 80% clip, resulting in a huge win for the bettors, but OLG also saw significant action on Canada -1.5 (72%) and over 5.5 goals (77%), with both of those outcomes falling the way of the book.

Of the 31 possible “Correct Score” markets OLG offered, 16% of players predicted the exact 3-2 score for Canada, at an average price of 13-to-1.

“On PlayNow.com, hockey was the most popular Olympic sport to bet on, with men’s and women’s hockey accounting for 78% of all Olympic bets made by players,” Lee said. “There was significant player interest in Team Canada events, specifically Canada’s men’s and women’s hockey games. The women’s hockey gold medal game between Canada and the U.S. was by far the most popular event to bet on for the Olympics on PlayNow.com. In fact, that game was more popular amongst PlayNow.com players than the majority of NHL games this season.”

Curling and other events

Curling was the second-most popular event of the Olympics, as Brad Gushue and his Canadian men’s team picked up a bronze medal.

“The most popular curling events of the Games were actually a pair of men’s and women’s round robin games — Gushue vs. Italy and [Jennifer] Jones vs. ROC — both of which ended favorably for our players,” Bitonti noted.

As far as curling outright gold medal odds, Canada was favored across all three curling disciplines — mixed, men’s, and women’s — but failed to grasp a gold medal, making it a big win for the books.

Outside of hockey, curling was also the second-most popular sport amongst PlayNow.com players during the Olympics, accounting for 18% of Winter Olympic bets.

PROLINE + bettors were also interested in the speed skating events. The 14 events combined made for the third-highest sales/sport with the women’s team pursuit, which Canada claimed gold in, being the most popular.  Snowboarding events also received action from Ontario bettors in the men’s slopestyle and big air competitions, where a pair of Canadians — Max Parrot and Mark McMorris — combined for a gold medal and two bronze.

Future of Olympic betting

The sports betting landscape in Canada will be drastically different for the next Olympics in Paris in summer of 2024. With over 30 private operators set to launch in Ontario’s regulated iGaming market on April 4, Ontario bettors will have all kinds of new offerings to choose from as companies compete for their betting dollars. If Ontario’s open market is a success, other provinces could also adopt the model and open up their respective markets to private operators in the months and years to come.

The location of the next Games will also benefit sportsbooks and bettors, as Paris is only six hours ahead of Eastern Time in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province with roughly 15 million people. With most of the live action in Beijing taking place during the overnight hours across Canada, peak audiences were limited to those willing to stay up late to catch their favorite events. With a more favorable time zone, TV networks and sportsbooks could see record numbers.

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Grande Prairie to host Grand Slam of Curling event in October

Grande Prairie to host Grand Slam of Curling event in October

Photo by Candace Boyne.

By Shane Clausing

curling

Feb 22, 2022 | 11:11 AM

The Grand Slam of Curling will be making a stop in Grande Prairie from October 18-23 at the Coca-Cola Centre.

What is being dubbed as the Hearing Life Tour Challenge will bring some of the best curlers in the world to the Swan City.

Originally, a Grand Slam of Curling event was supposed to be held in Grande Prairie back in 2020 and 2021, however, COVID-19 restrictions caused organizers to cancel the events for the year.

Grande Prairie is no stranger to hosting large curling events. The city hosted the Alberta curling provincials this past January and also hosted the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 2016.

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How this immigrant landed the top job at a B.C. curling club — without knowing how to curl | CBC News

How this immigrant landed the top job at a B.C. curling club — without knowing how to curl | CBC News

Edelaine Penaflor has never played curling before. She says she’s still learning the winter game. 

“I just know it’s sweeping and throwing some rocks,” she told host Carolina de Ryk on CBC’s Daybreak North. “I still don’t know how you win.”

Despite not knowing how to curl, the 28-year-old immigrant was hired as the executive director of the Fort St. John Curling Club.

She landed the role in August last year, and is now channelling her work experience from the Philippines toward her new role in the northeastern B.C. city.

An immigrant’s journey 

Like many newcomers, Penaflor started the job hunt as soon as she landed in Fort St. John. 

She submitted more than 20 applications for different roles in different industries, she says, because it’s not easy as a new immigrant to work in the same profession as she had in her home country.

After graduating with a degree in hospitality management, Penaflor worked for five years in events management at five-star hotels in Manila, including Sofitel Philippine Plaza and Conrad Manila.

She came to Fort St. John last July with her partner, who is studying business administration at Northern Lights College. Instead of pursuing another degree, she says she wanted to get some work experience. 

Penaflor pictured on vacation in Singapore with her partner, who is studying business administration at Northern Lights College. The couple came to Canada last summer. (Submitted by Edelaine Penaflor)

Penaflor says she found the job posting for the executive director role at Fort St. John Curling Club by chance and decided to give it a try.

“When I was searching for jobs … part of the job description doesn’t talk much about curling,” she said on Daybreak North. “It specified you … need to know events management, which is my background coming from the Philippines.”

“So I told myself, why not try it?”

To her surprise, she got the job.

Penaflor says working at the curling club lets her make good use of the events and sales management skills she honed in the Philippines.

Penaflor, far left, and her colleagues at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza hotel in Manila. She worked as an events management professional for five years before coming to Canada. (Submitted by Edelaine Penaflor)

“We actually have curling, we have a bar, we have a soccer pitch that’s here. We also have a banquet space,” she said of the club. “It’s not just like curling any more — we’re actually serving the entire community.

“What’s helped me in my past experience is I know how to handle the members here … I had good relationships with my clients [in the Philippines], so whenever I would move [between jobs of] hotels, they would go to me.”

5-star hotel experience

According to former club president Kenton Evenson, the Fort St. John Curling Club has to run year-round, so it’s important to have an executive director who can keep the facility busy when there are no curling events in the summertime, especially during the pandemic.

“It’s a huge, empty space of potential, so having somebody that can see that space and sell that space and so … all these organizations can have access to it, that’s something super important,” said Evenson, who was part of the board of directors that hired Penaflor.

Kenton Evenson, the former president of Fort St. John Curling Club, says it’s important for the club to run all year-round by renting out its facilities for events during the summertime. (Fort St. John Curling Club/Facebook)

Evenson says he’s glad someone as experienced as Penaflor took the role, despite her lack of experience with the sport.

“Being able to curl is great — you want people that understand the sport and how passionate people are about the sport, especially in Canada,” he said. “But … the more important thing is how to manage people, how to make sure buildings [are] running.”

“That kind of background was very evident in Edelaine for sure, coming from something as big as a five-star hotel.”

Penaflor says her current priority is to increase revenue for the club by renting out facilities. The curling rink has previously been used as a venue for events, which Penaflor plans to host more of. In the last month, they’ve received requests to host proms and graduation ceremonies at the rink.

Penaflor says she’s enjoying the role so far, as well as living in Fort St. John — despite the extreme cold weather.

“It’s been a great joy to me being with the curling rink,” she said.

“Everyone has been so nice, and seeing that I’m an immigrant and I’m not from Canada, people here who have been here for so long have been very understanding.”

Daybreak North6:52The woman running the Fort St. John curling club still doesn’t understand the sport but loves it anyway

Edelaine Penaflor had never heard of curling, as a sport, before moving to the Peace this summer from the Phillippines. But that hasn’t stopped her from jumping into her job as the Executive Director of the Fort St. John Curling Club. 6:52


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