The Pan Continental Curling Championships are heading to Lacombe, Alta., subsequent season — and three well-known Canadian curlers have banded collectively in an try and reimagine and rejuvenate the occasion.
Darren Moulding, Chelsea Carey and Colin Hodgson are a part of the organizing committee that has landed the annual worldwide occasion within the Alberta metropolis subsequent October 27 by means of to Nov. 2, 2024.
“Lacombe is a well-located curling hotbed, with a wealthy curling custom. It’s the best place to host this occasion,” Moulding advised CBC Sports activities. “The power is good and well-maintained, with good proximity to 2 worldwide airports.
“Lacombe is a pleasant, beneficiant place. The curling rink has the entire trendy facilities you can ask for and the group strongly helps all types of sporting occasions.”
The Lacombe Pan Continental Curling Championships will mark the third time the occasion is happening. It was voted in by World Curling’s member associations in 2021 as a manner to enhance competitors and participation within the Americas and Pacific-Asia areas. It is also used as a qualifying occasion for the ladies’s and males’s world championships.
The inaugural bonspiel passed off on the Markin MacPhail Centre in Calgary — Brad Gushue received gold for Canada and Kerri Einarson received bronze. This previous 12 months’s occasion passed off in Kelowna, B.C., and fell underneath harsh criticism from Gushue, who was as soon as once more Canada’s consultant, after he felt the athletes competing had been neglected.
Gushue mentioned the occasion was a humiliation to the game and the rivals, citing various points referring to gamers having restricted house to heat up and follow, largely due to the choice to carry the occasion in a curling membership relatively than an enviornment that’s outfitted with more room.
“There is a degree of incompetence there that must be corrected,” Gushue advised CBC Sports activities this previous November.
“The best way the WCF has run this week, it is a joke. It is a massive step again from the occasion we had final 12 months. I do not perceive why they’ve gone this route. I perceive you must give groups an opportunity to qualify for worlds and what not, I perceive that. However I believe there’s alternative ways it may very well be finished.”
WATCH l Gushue voices frustration over disorganized 2023 occasion:
One in all Canada’s high curling gamers, Brad Gushue, is hurling verbal stones in regards to the high quality of the services at a global championship being held this week in Kelowna, B.C.
Canadian curlers take motion
World Curling officers and different curlers who wished higher for the occasion and the game had been listening, and that is when Moulding, Carey and Hodgson took motion.
In conversations between the three, all of them acknowledged an enormous alternative for the occasion to develop into one thing nice, bringing in conventional followers of the sport whereas guaranteeing newcomers additionally really feel welcome. They’ve been going over each element to make sure gamers, volunteers and followers are met with respect and first-class hospitality.
They put collectively a complete pitch together with enjoying within the native 1,600-seat enviornment, the Gary Moe Auto Group Sports activities Complicated, and a 500-seat Lacombe curling membership. Moulding is the chair, Carey is particularly taking care of participant facilities and Hodgson will oversee advertising and promotion.
The sector beforehand hosted the 2014 Alberta males’s provincial championship and the 2015 ladies’s provincial championship. Moulding says there was ample room for broadcast cameras and media to cowl the occasions — one thing that was a problem in Kelowna.
The Lacombe curling membership has six sheets to play on with two ranges for followers to view the motion. And only a few years in the past the membership made a major funding in new Canada Curling Stone rocks in 2021.
“Working with World Curling has been an incredible expertise. The cooperation and assist in addition to dialogue to make this occasion particular. We now have an exquisite committee that’s dedicated to bringing this world-class occasion to life,” Moulding mentioned.
Moulding, who has coached India on the earlier occasions, says the Pan Continental might be a lot greater than it’s proper now. He is been working intently with World Curling to ensure that the entire wants of athletes competing are met and that the occasion helps develop the sport internationally.
Tickets are set to go on sale on Feb. 20.
“Via teaching Workforce India, I’ve been impressed by this occasion. Creating curling worldwide brings extra that means into my life, with the ability to share my ardour for the game and work with folks I care about,” Moulding mentioned.