All In For New Curling Event

Curling Canada has launched a new championship in conjunction with their official sports betting partner.

The PointsBet Invitational will feature 32 four-player teams—16 women and 16 men— in an unprecedented single-knockout competition for a prize purse of more than CDN $350,000.

The inaugural event will be contested Sept. 21-25 at Willie O’Ree Place in Fredericton, N.B., the site of two previously COVID-cancelled Curling Canada championships.

The PointsBet Invitational is being billed as the first major event of the 2022-23 season and the new Olympic quadrennial.

“The drama and emotion of a single-knockout bracket tournament is well-chronicled in sports such as tennis and the NCAA basketball championships, and we expect our new event to bring that kind of passion and excitement to curling,” said Curling Canada CEO Katherine Henderson. “It’s also a chance for us to showcase our partnership with PointsBet, and, happily, finally bring a major championship to Fredericton after a couple of disappointing years of cancellations due to the pandemic.”

Fredericton had been announced as the host of the 2020 Home Hardware Canada Cup and 2022 Continental Cup, but both events were cancelled because of the global pandemic.

This is a big step for the organization, launching a new championship with experts unsure of what the next salvo the pandemic may or may not bring.

The fields will be announced at a later date, but tentative plans announce the 16 teams in each gender from the top 12-ranked teams on the revamped World Curling Team Ranking System, the reigning women’s and men’s Canadian Junior and Canadian Curling Club team champions, two host committee squads, and a men’s and women’s sponsor’s exemption entry.

All 32 competing teams will receive $5,000 to cover travel and accommodation costs, and teams will earn more money for each successive win in the single-knockout tournament—$3,000 for a first-round win, $6,000 for a quarterfinal win, $12,000 for a semifinal win and $24,000 to the victorious women’s and men’s teams, meaning the two winning teams will each collect a total of $50,000.

Other plans call for 1,000 spectator seats, an on-site “Patch” party hall and a celebrity invitational event played after the quarterfinals.

PointsBet was announced as a Curling Canada partner in October of 2021.

“Since day one of our partnership with Curling Canada, we have made it a priority to offer new and exciting ways for fans to connect with the sport we all love,” said Nic Sulsky, Chief Commercial Officer for PointsBet Canada. “Whether it is the Trailer Park Boys throwing rocks with national champions Kevin Koe and Kerri Einarson, or events like the PointsBet Invitational, we are committed to working with Curling Canada to excite the existing supporters but to also attract the next generation of fans.”

A November 2021 Rock Logic podcast discussed the coming boom of curling betting.