The news has just been revealed: a major curling championship is headed to Las Vegas.

But what’s this? The December 2012 issue of The Curling News is due to arrive this week – it’s in the mail, actually – and you’re telling me that this Vegas news is on the cover? Howzzat?

Oh yeah. It’s Vegas, baby.

Here’s an opening excerpt from our December 2012 cover story, penned by ace columnist Larry Wood:

The gamut of prospects fairly boggles the mind. To say nothing of frying a cranial nerve or two… or even seven.

We’re talking here about curling in glittery, gaudy, downtown Las Vegas.

Make that international curling in glittery, gaudy, downtown Las Vegas. Involving the finest rockchucking dudes and dollies on the planet, don’t you know?

Of course, we have to be kidding, right? Well, now that you mention it, no. This is not a joke. And it’s not just a crazy dream, either. It’s bona fide championship curling in Sin City. Indeed!

Like, close the front door, right? What, in the name of Ken Watson, will they think of next? Mixed doubles in the Galapagos, perhaps?

Leave it to the combine of global curling nabobery – the World Curling Federation, USA Curling and the Canadian Curling Association. It has announced... practically simultaneous to TCN press time, you understand... that the 2014 edition of the World Financial Group Continental Cup will be staged in glittery, gaudy, you-know-where.

To be precise, the 10th edition of curling’s answer to Ryder Cup golf is slated Jan. 16-19 for the swank Orleans Arena, home to hockey’s Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL (formerly East Coast Hockey League), not to mention a couple of NCAA basketball tournaments.

Oh yes! It’ll be the first Continental Cup to hold forth outside the borders of Canada… and isn’t that about time?And the first for a Vegas curling event of practically any magnitude.

What’s that, you inquire?

Will there be casino chaperones for the participants? Also the media hacks who suddenly will find any excuse to cover this particular curling event?

Any bets on which men’s team will wake up with hangovers and a tiger in the bathroom? Chickens on the floor? How about that fun bunch with the gaily-coloured trousers?

Verily, it should be quite a rock concert. The Orleans Arena comes adjacent to its own hotel and casino. So the whole shebang will be centered in one just-off-the-strip location – on West Tropicana just a few blocks west of the real biggies, in fact.

The Orleans casino is the second largest in Vegas, and the complex includes 2,000 hotel rooms, 70 lanes of bowling, 18 movie theatres and 12 restaurants.

The horseshoe-shaped arena opened in May, 2003, featuring 5,736 permanent seats plus 1,405 retractable seats on the open end of the horseshoe. There is separate handicapped seating, plus 20 VIP suites seating between 12 and 22 and two larger party suites that will accommodate up to 36 each – likely, in this case, the back-room panjandrums of the curling world.

But there’s still more – a separate club seating section that holds another 248...

Alas folks, that’s all we’re going to leave you with; you’ll just have to grab (ie. subscribe to get) a copy of the December issue to read all the rest... a rest which includes many more details, including not one but two additional tales of of Vegas curling that are contained in our sport’s lore – from both the past and the very current present, in fact.

Don't delay, subscribe today...