 | |
| Sport | Curling |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1992 |
| Founder | Ed Lukowich |
| Official website | https://worldcurlingtour.org |
The World Curling Tour (WCT) is a group of curling bonspiels featuring the best male, female, and mixed doubles curlers in the world.
| | |
| Sport | Curling |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1992 |
| Founder | Ed Lukowich |
| Official website | https://worldcurlingtour.org |
The World Curling Tour (WCT) is a group of curling bonspiels featuring the best male, female, and mixed doubles curlers in the world.
The World Curling Tour was founded by former World Champion Ed Lukowich, with later assistance from John Kawaja. [1]
The World Curling Tour commenced in 1992, with men's events only at first. It replaced the "Canadian Curling Tour" held the previous season. The first season consisted of 48 events (with only one outside Canada), and was sponsored by Seagram's distillery. Teams earned points in every event with the top 30 qualifying for the season ending "V.O. Cup", today known as the Players' Championship. Its first president and CEO was Lukowich. [2] The first two events were held on the first weekend of October 1992, the Red Carpet Classic in Regina, Saskatchewan and a qualifier for the Coca-Cola Classic in Winnipeg. [3]
In 2001, the WCT introduced a series of Grand Slam events for men which was later followed in 2006 by Grand Slam events for women. These became known as the Grand Slam of Curling and featured large payouts. Originally, curlers who participated in Grand Slam events were obliged to not participate in their respective Brier playdowns, however this was quickly rescinded.
Most WCT events are held in the Fall, and early Winter to avoid competing with the Brier and Scotties playdowns.
The WCT is experimenting with length of games in two interesting ways. The first is that the games are only eight ends long with a 4th end break. The second is that the time clocks only count "thinking time", so the clock goes off when the players throw the rock. The reason is that time clocks, an innovation created to speed up the game, would stop as soon as the stone stopped. With the old system where teams were given 73 minutes of time [4] if a team was losing, they would throw more draw shots which take time. The team that is winning throws more hits and thus ends up with more time if needed. So the WCT moved to "Thinking time" to even out this discrepancy. With this new system, each team is given 40 minutes of “Thinking Time” plus an additional 5 minutes if the game goes to an extra end. [4] The system is now a standard in Curling Canada championship events, though with a 38-minute limit for standard 10-end curling (four minutes for extra ends) and 22 minutes for mixed doubles. The 2018 Canada Cup experimented with breaking the time down by ends — four minutes per end in the first half of the game, and four minutes, 15 seconds in the second half; if time runs out, the offending team can play no more rocks in the end. [5]
The team with the most winnings at the end of the year wins the Founders Trophy. The winners in 2007 were Kevin Martin's team who won a total of $176,000.
A separate Women's World Curling Tour existed, until it was merged into the WCT in 2005. [6]
Each of the bonspiel events on the World Curling Tour lasts for approximately 3 days with a final payoff ranging in the thousands of dollars for the winners.
There were 7 major men's and women's tournaments that were held throughout the year, each with a final cash prize of at least $100,000 for the winning team. These were the Elite 10, the Masters, the Tour Challenge, the National, the Canadian Open, the Players' Championship, and the Champions Cup. Together, these events were known as Grand Slam events because of the large payoff that is associated with them as well as the number of high-level curlers that play in these tournaments. These events are now part of the World Team Ranking System. There also used to be 2 more Grand Slam events for the women called the Sobeys Slam and Wayden Transportation Ladies Classic but these were discontinued in 2010.
On October 2, 2006, the license of rights for the Grand Slam of Curling was sold to Insight Sports Ltd. but was later sold again in August 2012 to Rogers Communications. [7] The WCT naming rights were then sold to Asham, a long time contributor to the sport, until 2014 and because of this, the World Curling Tour was renamed Asham's World Curling Tour. The Grand Slam was originally simply called the Grand Slam of Curling until 2008 when the rights were sold by the CBC to Capital One bank which renamed the Grand Slam the Capital One Grand Slam of Curling. Unlike the other World Curling Tour events, these Grand Slams they are played in 8-end games as opposed to the usual 10 end games found in the other WCT events. Another new rule that was first put into practice at the men's nationals in 2014 is the 5 rock rule which increased the 4 rock rule and free guard zone rule by another rock. [8] This changed the starting strategy of the game as the team with the hammer was able to throw up two guards uncontested instead of the usual 1 allowed with the previously used 4 rock rule. Through the addition of the Grand Slam events and the new rule changes, the WCT is rapidly becoming a well known series to sports fans worldwide.
On June 28, 2017, the Canadian-based World Curling Tour officially merged with the European and Asian based Curling Champions Tour to create a worldwide entity focused on growing the game on the international stage. The World Curling Tour World rights holder is now the Zurich Switzerland-based company CCT Event GmbH. This merger has also led to the growth of a Mixed Doubles tour, along with adding Junior and Wheelchair curling tours to expand the offering. [9]
Throughout the 2010's, the Men's and Women's World Curling Tour began in early August with the Hokkaido Bank Curling Classic and had events taking place all throughout the curling season until the Champions Cup in late April. Following the COVID-19 pandemic that cancelled the majority of the events during the 2020–21 season, a large majority of the tour events that made up the WCT left the tour, leaving only a handful of European events. The rest of the events continued to be played on the new World Team Ranking System.
As of the 2023-2024 curling season [10]
| Week | Event | Location | Purse |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Morioka Ice Rink Memorial Cup | Morioka, Japan | ¥ 195,000 |
| 11 | Baden Masters | Baden, Switzerland | CHF 35,000 |
| 17 | WCT Tallinn Mens Challenger | Tallinn, Estonia | € 3,000 |
| 18 | Prague Open | Prague, Czech Republic | € 4,000 |
| 21 | WCT Latvian International Challenger | Tukums, Latvia | € 3,000 |
| 21 | GP Bern Inter | Bern, Switzerland | CHF 18,100 |
| 22 | Blazing Leaves | Bridgeport, Connecticut | $4,500 (US) |
| 23 | Prague Classic | Prague, Czech Republic | € 13,500 |
| 28 | WCT Łódź Men's International | Łódź, Poland | € 4,000 |
| 34 | Belgium Men's Challenger | Zemst, Belgium | € 2,800 |
As of the 2023-2024 curling season [11]
| Week | Event | Location | Purse |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Prague Ladies International | Prague, Czech Republic | € 7,500 |
| 21 | WCT Latvian International Challenger | Tukums, Latvia | € 3,000 |
| 22 | Blazing Leaves | Bridgeport, Connecticut | $3,200 (US) |
| 22 | WCT Tallinn Ladies Challenger | Tallinn, Estonia | € 3,000 |
| 30 | New Year Medalist Curling | Miyota, Japan | ¥ 2,000,000 |
| 32 | Cortina Curling Cup | Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy | € 20,000 |
| 34 | International Bernese Ladies Cup | Bern, Switzerland | € 4,000 |
| 38 | Prague Open | Prague, Czech Republic | € 3,000 |
As of the 2023-2024 curling season [12]
| Week | Event | Location | Purse |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | Mixed Doubles Prague Open | Prague, Czech Republic | € 3,500 |
| 16 | WCT Tallinn Mixed Doubles International | Tallinn, Estonia | € 3,325 |
| 19 | WCT Austrian Mixed Doubles Cup | Kitzbühel, Austria | € 3,200 |
| 21 | WCT Mixed Doubles Cup Geising | Geising, Germany | € 2,000 |
| 22 | WCT Slovakia Mixed Doubles Cup I | Bratislava, Slovakia | € 2,300 |
| 23 | WCT Mixed Doubles Łódź | Łódź, Poland | € 3,500 |
| 25 | WCT Latvian Mixed Doubles Curling Cup I | Riga, Latvia | |
| 34 | Gefle Mixed Doubles Cup | Gävle, Sweden | € 4,500 |
| 39 | Hvidovre Mixed Doubles Cup | Hvidovre, Denmark | |
| 41 | WCT Slovakia Mixed Doubles Cup II | Bratislava, Slovakia | |
| 44 | WCT Latvian Mixed Doubles Curling Cup II | Riga, Latvia |
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.
Patrick McCallum is a Canadian curler.
Johan Niklas Edin is a Swedish curler. He currently resides in Karlstad, which has been his curling home base since 2008. He holds several sport distinctions. He is the first and the only skip in World Curling Federation (WCF) history to win three Olympic medals – gold (2022), silver (2018), and bronze (2014) – and to skip men's curling teams to six World Men's Curling Championship medals. He is also a seven-time European Curling Championship titleholder and won three silver medals in those championships. He is currently tied with Oskar Eriksson in first place on the WCF-recognized list of championship medals, with thirty-eight in total. He reached the playoffs in thirty-seven Grand Slam of Curling events and won the Pinty's Cup with his current teammates, Oskar Eriksson, Rasmus Wranå, and Christopher Sundgren. With the same lineup in 2022, Edin and his teammates also became the first and only men's curling team to win a fourth consecutive World Men's Curling Championship. Edin has played exclusively in the position of skip since 2007. The team bearing his name has been ranked on the World Curling Tour as high as No. 1, including for most of the 2017–18 season. As of the end of the 2021–22 Curling Season, Team Edin was ranked in the top three teams in the world.
Rachel Catherine Homan is a Canadian international curler. Homan is a former Canadian junior champion, a three-time Canadian national champion, and the 2017 world champion, all as a skip. She was also the skip of the Canadian women's curling team at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Lesley Kaitlyn Lawes is a Canadian curler. Lawes was the long time third for the Jennifer Jones team that represented Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics where they won the gold medal. They were the first women's team to go through the Olympics undefeated and the first Manitoba based curling team to win at the Olympics. Lawes curled with John Morris in the mixed doubles event at the 2018 Winter Olympics where they won gold. This win made her and Morris the first Canadian curlers to win two Olympic gold medals, and Lawes was the first to win gold in two consecutive Olympics.
The 2010–11 curling season began in September 2010 and ended in April 2011.
Chelsea Danielle Carey is a Canadian curler from Calgary, Alberta. She is the 2016 and 2019 Canadian and Alberta women's champion skip and 2014 Manitoba provincial women's champion skip.
Laura Walker is a Canadian curler from Edmonton, Alberta. She is a two-time Canadian University champion, a national junior champion, world junior silver medallist and world mixed doubles bronze medallist. Walker is originally from Scarborough, Ontario.
Kerri Einarson is a Canadian Métis curler from Camp Morton, Manitoba, in the Rural Municipality of Gimli. Einarson is the four-time reigning women's national champion in curling, skipping her team to victory in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. She previously won silver in 2018. Einarson has won five Grand Slam of Curling events: the 2016 Boost National, 2019 Players' Championship, 2021 Players' Championship, 2022 Champions Cup, and 2022 Masters.
Alina Pätz is a Swiss curler. She currently throws fourth stones on Team Silvana Tirinzoni. She is a six-time world champion and was the alternate player for the Mirjam Ott rink, which represented Switzerland at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Joanne M. Courtney is a Canadian curler from Edmonton, Alberta. From 2014 to 2022, she was a member of the Rachel Homan rink which won the 2017 World Women's Curling Championship and represented Canada at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Jocelyn Andrea Peterman is a Canadian curler. She currently plays second for the Kaitlyn Lawes rink.
Isabella Marianne Peggy Wranå is a Swedish curler. She is a former skip of the Swedish junior women's team, with whom she won a World Junior championship in 2017. In 2018, she was inducted into the Swedish Curling Hall of Fame.
Kim Min-ji is a South Korean curler. She currently plays third on the Gyeonggi Province curling team skipped by Gim Eun-ji. She is a 2018 Pacific-Asia Curling champion.
Bruce Mouat is a Scottish curler. He is the reigning Scottish, European and World men's champion skip. He is also an Olympic silver medallist, having skipped Great Britain to a second place finish in the men's team event at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Briane Harris is a Canadian curler from Petersfield, Manitoba. She currently plays lead on Team Kerri Einarson from Gimli, Manitoba. Currently, the Einarson team are the four-time reigning Scotties Tournament of Hearts champions, winning the title in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. She has also won four Grand Slam of Curling events with the Einarson rink.
Briar Schwaller-Hürlimann is a Swiss curler from Recherswil. She is currently the alternate on Team Corrie Hürlimann. She won a World Women's Championship for Switzerland playing lead for Team Silvana Tirinzoni in 2023.
Ha Seung-youn is a South Korean curler from Uijeongbu. She is the skip of the Chuncheon City Hall curling team. While playing with Kim Min-ji, she won a silver medal at the 2020 World Junior Curling Championships.
Travis Mitchell Fanset is a Canadian curler from Tillsonburg, Ontario. A former Canadian junior runner-up, he played on the World Curling Tour From 2011 to 2017, including one season with the John Epping rink.
Robin Brydone is a Scottish curler from Perth, Scotland. He is currently the skip of the Team Ross Whyte rink.