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A bonspiel is a curling tournament, consisting of several games, often held on a weekend. Until the 20th century most bonspiels were held outdoors, on a frozen freshwater loch. Today almost all bonspiels are held indoors on specially prepared artificial ice.
Curling Canada, formerly known as the Canadian Curling Association, is the national governing body of the sport in Canada. While bonspiels originated in Scotland, the most notable competitive curling tournament in the world nowadays is the Canadian Men's Curling Championship, The Brier. For many Canadians, this tournament equals or nearly equals the importance of the Olympics and the World Curling Championship.[ citation needed ] The Canadian Women's Curling Championship is called the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Several Cashspiels are played in Canada every year, with the most important cashspiels being part of the World Curling Tour (WCT). Many local curling clubs and other organizations in Canada also host casual, social bonspiels indoors, and a few are also held outdoors like the Ironman Outdoor Curling Bonspiel in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The United States Curling Association (USA Curling) is the national governing body of the sport in the United States. Many bonspiels are listed on the USA Curling website. Most bonspiels in the United States are held indoors in dedicated curling facilities, but a few bonspiels are held outdoors if the weather allows it. One example of an outdoor bonspiel is the Sawtooth Outdoor Bonspiel held each January in the Sawtooth Mountain Range of Idaho. Bonspiels are popular throughout the United States during curling season, typically October through April. Some special bonspiels are held in the summer as well as some that are hosted by clubs that play on arena ice as there are usually fewer scheduling conflicts with other sports at the area such as hockey and figure skating.
In Scotland, outdoor bonspiels are now very rare; most lochs that formerly hosted bonspiels, such as Loch Earn, rarely freeze over anymore. The Loch of Aboyne was the site of a bonspiel in 1891 and the private railway station, Aboyne Curling Pond was used for the event. The word spiel is sometimes used to refer to an informal curling game, as in parish spiel. The most important Cashspiels in Scotland are part of the Curling Champions Tour (CCT) The Grand Match was last held outdoors in 1979, although it was revived as an indoor tournament in 2000 and has been held every five years since. [1] [2] Between 1853 and 1935 twenty-five 'Grand Matches' or bonspiels were held at the Royal Caledonian Curling Club's own pond at Carsebreck Loch in Perth and Kinross served by the society's own private Carsbreck railway station.
Dozens of bonspiels are held in European countries every year. Switzerland hosts multiple Curling Champions Tour events.
Curling bonspiels are held when ice conditions permit in the Maniototo, part of Central Otago in the South Island. The region is one of the few in New Zealand to have conditions suitable for outdoor curling, and is also a fitting site for the sport given that Otago's original European settlers were mainly from Scotland. Several artificial and natural lakes around the towns of Oturehua, Naseby and Patearoa provide good conditions, on average every second or third year.
The national bonspiel has been held when conditions permit since 1879, with Oturehua's Idaburn Dam the venue since 1932. [3] The most recent national bonspiel, the 66th, was held on 13-14 July 2015. [4] Most New Zealand curling clubs are located in Otago, Canterbury, and Southland, and owing to the difficulty of getting teams to the relatively inaccessible venue, it is rare for teams to travel from outside the southern South Island to the bonspiel.
Indoor curling rinks exist in Otago's main centre, Dunedin (at the Dunedin Ice Stadium), and in the towns of Naseby, Otago and Gore, Southland, and also further north in the country's largest city, Auckland. Open air ice rinks exist in Naseby and Alexandra. [5]
A cashspiel is a bonspiel played for money, and a carspiel is one played for the prize of an automobile. There are different types of cashspiels, some are small, with prizes in the hundreds of dollars, and others are quite sizeable, with the rewards running into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Possibly from Dutch bond "league, association" + spel "game".
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called rocks, across the ice curling sheet toward the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones, with each player throwing two. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game; points are scored for the stones resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones once. A game usually consists of eight or ten ends.
The Brier, known as the Tim Hortons Brier for sponsorship reasons, is the annual Canadian men's curling championship, sanctioned by Curling Canada. The current event name refers to its main sponsor, the Tim Hortons coffee and donut shop chain. "Brier" originally referred to a brand of tobacco sold by the event's first sponsor, the Macdonald Tobacco Company.
The Grand Match, also called The Bonspiel, is an outdoor curling tournament, or bonspiel, held most recently on the Lake of Menteith in Stirling, Scotland, when the weather is cold enough. Traditionally it is a match between the north and south of Scotland.
The Royal Caledonian Curling Club (RCCC), branded as Scottish Curling is a curling club in Edinburgh, Scotland. It developed the first official rules for the sport, and is the governing body of curling in Scotland. The RCCC was founded on 25 July 1838 in Edinburgh, and granted its royal charter by Queen Victoria in 1843, after she had witnessed a demonstration of the sport played on the polished ballroom floor of Scone Palace the previous year.
The Plainfield Curling Club is a nonprofit curling club located in South Plainfield, New Jersey. It owns and operates the only dedicated curling facility in New Jersey. It was founded in 1963, with the members initially using rented ice and curling outdoors. The current two-sheet structure was completed in 1967.
Julie Hastings is a Canadian curler from Stouffville, Ontario.
The Manitoba Curling Association Bonspiel is the annual Manitoba Curling Association bonspiel held at the end of every January in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada. It is the largest curling bonspiel in the world with the tournament setting a record in 1988 with 1280 curling teams, as well as the oldest, with the first edition taking place in 1888. The tournament is unseeded and can have the top teams in the world facing first time curlers or otherwise. The current editions of the MCA Bonspiel qualifies 3 Manitoban teams into the men's provincial championship which is currently named the Viterra Championship.
The Potomac Curling Club is a curling club started in 1961 and currently curling in Laurel, Maryland. Operating out of the National Capital Curling Center, a dedicated curling ice facility at The Gardens Ice House operated under a long-term lease since 2002, the group maintains four sheets of dedicated curling ice, the only dedicated curling ice in the Washington, D.C., area. The club operates during the main curling season, although social events for the membership occur during the summer.
Robert "Rob" Schlender is a Canadian curler from Sherwood Park, Alberta.
The 1927 Macdonald Brier Tankard, the Canadian men's national curling championship, was held March 1–3 at the Granite Club in Toronto. This edition of the Brier would be the first, with it also being the first time it was hosted in Ontario, and the first time it was hosted in Toronto's Granite Club.
The King Cash Spiel, formerly the Golden Ears Curling Classic and the Coronation Group Classic, is an annual cashspiel, or curling tournament, that takes place at the Golden Ears Curling Club in Maple Ridge, British Columbia. The event has been on and off again as part of the World Curling Tour, and has been held since 1981. The tournament is held in a round robin format.
The Baxter Cup is the oldest New Zealand trophy in the sport of curling. First contested in 1884, it is thought to be the second oldest still-contested New Zealand sporting trophy.
Carsbreck railway station was a private station opened on the Scottish Central Railway near Carsebreck Loch, the Royal Caledonian Curling pond, between Stirling and Perth for the use of the curlers belonging to the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. It was first named by the Scottish Central Railway as 'Royal Curling Club Station, a host of later names being Caledonian Curling Society's Platform, Curling Pond Halt, Royal Curling Club Platform, Royal Curling Club Station, Netherton Halt and finally as Carsbreck Station. It is unclear how many of these were official names. The site lay in the parish of Ardoch, Perth and Kinross with the villages of Braco, Greenloaning and Blackford nearby. The Scottish Central Railway line had been opened in 1848.
Christina Black is a Canadian curler from Halifax, Nova Scotia. She currently skips her own team out of the Dartmouth Curling Club in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
The 2019–20 curling season began in June 2019 and was scheduled to end in May 2020. However, the coronavirus pandemic declared in March 2020 resulted in the cancellation of events and the premature ending of the season.
The Curling Store Cashspiel is an annual bonspiel, or curling tournament, held at the Lakeshore Curling Club in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia. It has been an on and off event of the Men's and Women's World Curling Tour since 2004 under many different names. The tournament is held in a round robin format. In 2004, it was held as an open event to both men's and women's teams.
Travis Colter is a Canadian curler from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He currently plays second on Team Stuart Thompson. He was a member of the 2019 Nova Scotia men's championship rink that competed at the 2019 Tim Hortons Brier, Canada's national men's curling championship.
The Dave Jones Stanhope Simpson Insurance Mayflower Cashspiel is an annual bonspiel, or curling tournament, held at the Mayflower Curling Club in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It has been held annually since 2013 as a men's and women's tour event. The tournament is held in a triple knockout format on the men's side and a round robin format on the women's side.