sports@mapleridgenews.com
Maple Ridge will be the host to the first 2019-20 B.C. Curling Tour event.
The tour will kick off this weekend with the King Cash Spiel at Golden Ears Winter Club.
The B.C. Junior Curling Tour was launched in the 2015-16 season, and was joined by the B.C. Men’s Curling Tour and the B.C. Women’s Curling Tour last season. The purpose of these tours is to qualify teams directly to B.C. championships, increase the number of teams competing in the province, and create province-wide training and development opportunities for B.C. teams.
The King Cash Spiel starts on Friday, Sept. 13 and wraps up on Sunday, Sept. 15. Both men’s and women’s teams will be in action.
The Junior Tour will launch the following weekend (Sept. 20-22) at the Anita Cochrane Memorial Junior Cashspiel at Royal City Curling Club in New Westminster.
“We heard from curlers in B.C. that the B.C. Curling Tours were a valuable training ground for them,” said Curl B.C. competitions manager Will Sutton. “Together with our curling centre partners we are helping B.C.’s next generation of elite curlers to compete against each other and become teams that are more competitive at the national and world levels.”
Streaming of some draws of the King Cash and Anita Cochrane bonspiels will be available on the Curl BC YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/channel/UCH-6-t0AKg_WVkjL6sQZtkw. Scores for all draws in all tour events will also be available at www.worldcurl.com.
The events on the tours are Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) point eligible, with the goal of attracting top B.C. and CTRS teams to compete.
Tour events will be taking place around the province, from Vancouver Island to the Lower Mainland to the Okanagan.
Last year’s B.C. Curling Tour winners were Team Geall from Abbotsford (men’s), Team Brown from Kamloops (women’s), Team Tardi from Langley/Victoria (junior men’s) and Team Daniels from Delta (junior women’s).
The B.C. Curling Tours have been funded in part by a grant from viaSport BC and the Province of British Columbia.
In order to ensure that participating and prospective teams have easy access to information about the tours, a website was created specifically for the BC Curling Tours. This website (www.bccurlingtours.com) contains event information and a registration form. As the season progresses, the website will also include information on standings as well as team photos and rosters.
Registration is for the BC Curling Tours is still open. Interested teams can register here today: www.bccurlingtours.com.