Curling Canada bubble events remain on track in Calgary

Monday’s World Curling Federation announcement that the 2021 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship, presented by BKT Tires, has been cancelled won’t have an effect on Curling Canada’s planned series of events in Calgary, beginning later this month.

Curling Canada confirmed Monday that the 2021 Scotties Tournament of Hearts (Feb. 19-28), the 2021 Tim Hortons Brier, presented by AGI (March 5-14), the 2021 Home Hardware Canadian Mixed Doubles Championship, presented by Nature’s Bounty (March 18-25), and the 2021 BKT Tires/OK Tire World Men’s Curling Championship, presented by New Holland (April 2-11) will proceed as scheduled.

The events will take place in a strictly enforced bubble environment at the Markin MacPhail Centre at WinSport’s Canada Olympic Park in Calgary.

The 2021 LGT World Women’s Championship was scheduled for March 19-28 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.

“We’ve been in constant communication with Alberta Health as well as the Public Health Agency of Canada, and our testing and enforcement protocols are backed by medical professionals, so we have every confidence that fans will be able see our sport’s best players perform in Calgary in an environment that is safe for athletes, officials and, especially, the host city of Calgary,” said Katherine Henderson, Chief Executive Officer of Curling Canada. “We respect the decision of the World Curling Federation, and we will await further direction with respect to the cancellation of the event in Switzerland.”

While the winner of the 2021 Scotties won’t play at the World Women’s Championship in Switzerland, the winning team will factor into Canada’s efforts to qualify a four-player women’s team for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The top six finishing countries at the World Women’s Championship were to have qualified for Beijing. The WCF is expected to announce its revamped Olympic qualifying plans at a later date.