Howard in Toronto

Here’s Glenn Howard showing his stuff at Toronto’s Leaside Curling Club last night.

Howard and teammates Richard Hart and Brent Laing visited Leaside and then the Cricket club to promote next month’s Grey Power World Cup of Curling at Mississauga’s Hershey Centre, located just west of the Toronto airport.

At each club the lads met with members, signed autographs and participated in an interactive on-ice clinic.

Team Howard begins the World Cup with a Wednesday night (Oct. 21) matchup against Germany’s Andy Kapp, in a repeat of the 2007 Ford World Men’s Championship final.

Also in action on that opening draw is Kevin Martin, who faces Sweden’s Olympic hopeful Niklas Edin; 2006 Olympic gold medallist Brad Gushue, who takes on 2006 Olympic bronze medallist John Shuster of the United States; Four-time world champ Randy Ferbey, who battles the Chinese men’s Olympic team; and Edmonton’s Kevin Koe, who takes on Thomas Dufour of France.

Tickets can be purchased via Ticketmaster or the Hershey Centre box office.

Toronto media seem to awakening, briefly, from their NHL hockey pre-season slumber. Both the Globe and Mail and Toronto Sun published advance stories about the World Cup today.

[LATEST: and another Howard-oriented piece from the Globe’s James Christie was released tonight]

The Howards are jetting to the left coast tonight, for the start of Thursday’s World Curling Tour stop in Vernon, B.C. Four of the Olympic women’s teams confirmed for Vancouver are also competing in the women’s division.

[The Curling News photo by Anil Mungal]

Three Nations Cup curling

There’s more bang for the curling buck available at the Grey Power World Cup of Curling, coming to the Greater Toronto Area in just a few weeks.

The women’s Three Nations Cup has been added to the opening men’s Capital One Grand Slam of Curling event of the season, October 21-25 at Mississauga’s Hershey Centre.

A total of four women’s Olympic qualifiers and hopefuls will compete in the inaugural Three Nations Cup including reigning Olympic bronze medallist Shannon Kleibrink of Calgary (in photo at right), 2009 Roar of the Rings direct qualifier Stefanie Lawton of Saskatoon (bottom left), reigning World Champion Bingyu Wang of China (left) and 2010 Olympic Winter Games entrant Eve Muirhead of Scotland (main image), who will represent Great Britain in Vancouver.

“We’re thrilled to be adding this elite, international women’s event as part of the festivities surrounding the Grey Power World Cup of Curling,” said Kevin Albrecht, Chief Executive Officer of iSport Media and Management. “Featuring four of the top women’s teams in the world, the Three Nations Cup will provide fans with a snapshot of the competition heading into the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.”

This latest curling Cup begins October 22 and concludes with the championship game on October 25.

“Curling fans in the GTA have been waiting more than 20 years for an elite international event to take place in our region, and now we have two outstanding tournaments joined together,” said Elizabeth Woolnough, President of the Toronto Curling Association.

“The Three Nations Cup will provide even more excitement for the GTA’s passionate curling fans.”

Tickets – both for packages and single draws – are now on sale from Ticketmaster and at the Hershey Centre box office.

For more on the impressive, Olympic men’s field at the Grey Power World Cup, check out this previous blogpost.

Got your tickets yet?

Grey Power World Cup of Curling

The big news today concerns the “Toronto Slam” as the event has been re-branded as the Grey Power World Cup of Curling.

Formerly known as the Masters of Curling, the Grey Power World Cup of Curling runs October 21-25 at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga, just minutes from Toronto’s main airport.

As the first tournament in the new Capital One Grand Slam of Curling season, the event would normally be big enough on its own. However, as The Curling News has previously reported, this one is worthy of it’s new World Cup name.

No less than 10 of the international teams headed to February’s Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games will take part, challenged by four of the top dogs headed to December’s Canadian Olympic Trials: Kevin Martin, Glenn Howard, Randy Ferbey and Kevin Koe.

A fifth Canadian team will also take part. Brad Gushue’s foursome, fresh off their victory at the first World Curling Tour stop of the season, will compete at the Hershey Centre. The Gushues are looking to win a spot into the Trials at the last-gasp qualification event at Prince George, B.C. in November.

As The Curling News reported last winter, Grey Power first jumped into the Slam sponsorship world by taking title rights to the season-ending Players’ Championship in Grande Prairie.

“We’re thrilled to be increasing our involvement with one of Canada’s favourite sports through our partnership with the World Cup of Curling,” said Catherine Smola, President of Grey Power Insurance Brokers Inc.

“We are hugely impressed by the passion Canadians have towards curling and we believe these world class events represent a tremendous opportunity for us to further connect with our customers.”

Today’s announcement comes from the Slam, the Tour and also from an organization called iSport Media and Management. This is the new home of Kevin Albrecht, the man who first built the Grand Slam property at IMG Canada and took it to Insight Sports some three years ago.

“The ability to extend our partnership with Grey Power to include two of curling’s biggest international tournaments reinforces the growth and popularity of the Capital One Grand Slam of Curling series,” said Albrecht.

“Grey Power’s brand and services have proven to be an ideal fit for curling’s passionate fan base and we are looking forward to building on the success of last year’s Grey Power Players’ Championship.”

Among the international Olympic teams headed to Hershey are reigning World champions David Murdoch of Scotland, reigning World bronze medallist Thomas Ulsrud of Norway, 2007 World silver medallist Andreas Kapp of Germany, 2006 Olympic bronze medallist John Shuster of the United States, 2008 World fourth-place finisher Fengchun Wang of China, defending World University Games champion Niklas Edin of Sweden, France’s Thomas Dufour and Denmark’s Ulrik Schmidt.

The final nation to compete in the Grey Power World Cup is Switzerland. A best-of-seven series between Ralph Stoeckli and Stefan Karnusian will declare their Olympic rep, who will then appear in Mississauga.

Ticket packages for the Grey Power World Cup of Curling are currently on sale, with seats available through Ticketmaster or by visiting the Hershey Centre box office.

The 2009 Grey Power World Cup of Curling is being lauded as the first major international curling event to be held in the Greater Toronto Area since 1986, when Toronto hosted the World Men’s Curling Championship.

The Toronto Curling Association has been a strong partner of the Grey Power World Cup of Curling with strong support from all of the TCA’s 23 member curling clubs.

Following the Grey Power World Cup, the 2009-10 men’s Capital One Grand Slam of Curling series continues with The National, taking place at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph, Ont. from January 6-10, 2010; the BDO Classic Canadian Open, from January 20-24, 2010 at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg; and concludes with the Grey Power Players’ Championship, an event featuring separate men’s and women’s draws, to be hosted in April (dates and location TBA).

Two additional women’s Grand Slam events get underway next month, with the Calgary’s Trail Appliances Classic on October 9-12 and the Manitoba Lotteries Women’s Curling Classic scheduled for Winnipeg on October 23-26.

Manitoba, Mississauga Masters and more

This photo (above) comes from a Breakfast Television appearance – Winnipeg version – back in January, to promote the then-imminent BDO Canadian Open Grand Slam.

The pic shows youthful Manitoba curling skips Reid Carruthers (standing left) and Mike McEwen (right) and the BT hosts messing about with the same kind of indoor school stones that are featured in the Capital One Rocks and Rings program.

Why do we show you this now?

First of all, we only received these pics fairly recently, so... :-p !

And secondly, these two hopefuls are in action today in Selkirk, as the Manitoba provincial men’s championship, the Safeway Select, finally gets underway.

As such, there is some media to examine, including this piece in which Edmonton import Kevin Park admits that he’s “getting a bit of a hazing... dual citizenship and all.” Meanwhile, in this other Freep story, we find that someone has abducted and replaced Jeff Stoughton – well yeah, did you see this photo? – and that Allan Lyburn has the early start on quote of the week honours:

“We’re here to drink a lot of beer and have a good time. Because, let’s face it, I don’t generally play very well at this thing.”

Meanwhile, the rival Sun is picking Kerry Burtnyk to win it all, and former Manitoba competitor (ooooh!) Jon Mead is on the air with this week’s Shaw TV coverage ...


Meanwhile ...

• It seems the Masters of Curling Grand Slam scheduled for Toronto’s Air Canada Centre in October is moving to nearby Mississauga and the Hershey Centre. Brian McAndrew of the Toronto Star has this story posted, while Donald Duench of the Toronto Sun has a piece here and the local Mississauga News is understandably pumped.

Our opinion? Well, while it would have been cool to see the Roaring Game at the ACC, the current economic climate makes the move unsurprising... and perhaps GTA curling fans should be pleased that a) the event is still running; b) it’s still in the GTA and c) it’s still got the same dates and amazing international field.

For more on this, check out the upcoming March issue of The Curling News for some quotes from Mr. Insight Sports himself, Kevin Albrecht ...

• The Edmonton Journal asks: should Canada select a team for the Olympic Games, as opposed to hosting a Trials shootout?

• Cheryl Bernard can be heard on The Curling Show, and we hear that Mr. Blunt himself, Ben Hebert, will be on the air shortly ...

• There be a roaring argument going on in Scotland ...

• More Brazilians are on the curling ice – er, glass – this time in High River, Alberta ...

• And finally, the fun folks at the Blind River CC have a quick story on the Emo Curling Club, which was built out of a 100-year-old schoolhouse. Very cool!