The road to the 2018 Tim Hortons Brier will run through Estevan.
Affinity Place and the Energy City will play host to the SaskTel Tankard Men’s Provincial Curling Championship from Jan. 31 to Feb. 4, 2018. The Tankard will feature the best 16 teams in Saskatchewan competing for the provincial title as well as the right to represent this province at the Brier in Regina from March 3 to 11.
“It is going to be great for the community,” said Devon Fornwald, president of the Estevan Curling Club, shortly after announcing at Affinity Place’s Crescent Point Lounge on Monday that Estevan has been chosen by CurlSask to host the Tankard. “It’s going to bring people in. The hotels, the businesses in town, it should be a spectacular event for everybody. It’s one of the best curling events in the province at that time every year.”
Fornwald said the Curling Club has been working on a bid to host the Tankard, which was last held in Estevan in 1994, for about a year. He said now that they’ve been awarded the hosting duties they’re going to begin working on recruiting volunteer help to assist them in putting on a first-rate event while also finalizing a plan to generate some excitement among people in this area so they can pack the 2,200-seat venue for the prestigious five-day championship.
“We’re going to try and pique the interest a little bit and get some ticket sales out there,” he said. “For a curling event of this size I’m hoping that we’ll get some nice crowds. There is always lots of family that show up. It’s a lot of fun to come to these events if you’ve never been to one.”
Roy Ludwig, mayor of Estevan, said it is a privilege to be able to host an event of this magnitude that will allow the community’s people and businesses to showcase this city and all of the amenities it has to offer. He said the Estevan Curling Club team of Fornwald, manager Pauline Ziehl Grimsrud and vice president Leah Moriarty along with the staff at Affinity Place led by leisure services manager Nathan Jesse will do a fantastic job at getting everything ready for the event and the City will be there to make sure any needs that come up in the next 14 months, including scheduling issues among the various clubs that regularly use the ice, will be taken care of.
“We’ll just make it work because this will be fantastic for our city,” said Ludwig. “I know the Bruins are willing to work around scheduling issues like that, so that we can have the Tankard here in Estevan.”
Fornwald said James Gordon, the Estevan Curling Club’s ice technician, will be assisting the CurlSask ice maker in turning the sheet at Affinity Place into a venue suitable for the Tankard. He said they’ll begin by building a base big enough for four sheets of curling ice, bring in pure water from a power station and pour it on to flatten the rink before putting some white paint over top of it to get ready for the Tankard only to take it out again after it’s over to get it back in shape for the hockey teams.
“It’s going to take a couple of weeks really from start to finish,” said Fornwald. “The event is going to last about five days for us, but they are going to be in here a week ahead of time to start the ice making process and then it will probably take a day or two to remove all that to get back to the hockey rink. It’s quite a process, but it’s also a lot of fun to watch.”
