The Home Hardware Canada Cup hosted by Estevan last week was a boon to a lot of the city’s businesses.
There were a lot of people through the gates for the 14 draws over five days at Affinity Place – 13,695 tickets were sold according to Curling Canada – but the impact of an event like this isn’t just limited to the arena.
“It has a huge economic impact,” said Rebecca Westling, destination marketing and communications consultant with the city. That impact wasn’t just in the food service and accommodations part of the economy, either.
“Other services even really get a (part) of that downtown… like taxis and shops downtown,” Westling said. “Even associations like the Exhibition Association and the (Power Dodge) curling club. I know when we had the (SaskTel) Tankard, back in February, we saw an increase in numbers for the folks in their clubs. It’s really great promotion for the sport of curling, and our community for the businesses and services we offer.”
The event was embraced well by the community, Westling said.
“We haven’t heard much negative at all and we really had a great response from everyone in the community and how they were really thankful for the organizers and the volunteers bringing the event to our city,” she said. “It created a sense of pride with our residents.”
The number for the cost to host the event was unknown at this time, Westling said, nor the income. But the national spotlight shone down on the city and now those outside will be able to see that Estevan can be the place to host events like this in the future.
“It kind of sets the stage that we are able to host great events, we have the facilities to do it,” she said.
The event as it was brought in people from across North America for the major curling event.
“I spoke with people from Texas and across the Prairies and B.C., and people from North Dakota and South Dakota,” Westling said. “Curling Canada reported that… we were on par with communities our size and maybe even higher than that just because of the capacity of our facility and even our demographics and where we are, close to the border, and to a major city like Regina.”
Organizing committee co-chair Helen Fornwald was in the process of helping get Affinity Place back to normal hockey and figure skating activities well into Sunday night.
“Overall, I believe the expectations were met by Curling Canada,” Fornwald said. “We’ve heard some excellent comments and we’ve learned that we can put on an event of this nature and we’ve been asked to step it up and put on another event. I think we’re going to take a break and then re-evaluate where we’re at. It was a learning curve to work with Curling Canada and TSN but the community is very supportive in the area.”
Fornwald said that Curling Canada told the committee that the community should be proud of what they’ve done.
“They said they’ve been around for many years but they said the volunteers in this community were the friendliest and most helpful ones they’re ever met,” Fornwald said. “I’m so proud of our community. I’m proud of all the 187 volunteers. Everybody worked well together.”
The committee hadn’t worked with Curling Canada or TSN before and are better aware of protocols with the groups.
Fornwald said they’ve been asked to host another event in the future.
“We’ve been approached,” she said. “We’re going to sit back and take a break and then once everyone’s well rested, we’ll look at our options and see what’s available out there. There’s no doubt in my mind that in the future, we’ll be hosting another curling event at Affinity Place.”
Without the volunteers and the organizing committees, Westling said events like this wouldn’t be possible.
