First time for Scotties in the GTA

For the first time ever, the Canadian women’s curling championship is coming to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

The 2026 Scotties Tournament of Hearts will be contested in Mississauga, Canada’s sixth-largest city (800,000 population) adjacent to Toronto, from Jan. 23 to Feb. 1.

STOH championships usually run a month early in Olympic seasons. Curling at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Cortina, Italy commences with the first mixed doubles draw on Feb. 4, just three days after the Scotties final.

The announcement was made today at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga, a city of 800,000 adjacent to Toronto.

The 5,000-seat venue is home to the Raptors 905 of the NBA G League and also to the Toronto Rock lacrosse team. The facility has also hosted two previous curling championships, an Ontario provincial and a Grand Slam of Curling event.

The STOH title sponsor is also based in Mississauga.

“Kruger Products is honoured to celebrate 45 years of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, a significant milestone in our role as the longest-standing supporter of women’s sports in Canada,” said Susan Irving, Chief Marketing Officer at Kruger Products.

“We are thrilled that next year’s tournament will be held in Mississauga, bringing together Canada’s top curlers to compete for the title of Team Canada. As the makers of Scotties, Canada’s #1 facial tissue brand, we are proud to continue supporting this event and contributing to the growth of women’s curling across the country.”

It will mark the 16th time the championship is hosted in the province of Ontario. Nine tournaments have been hosted in the south (with seven in the north) but 2026 will mark the first one to be hosted in the GTA.

The last time a Scotties was held in Curling Ontario’s (southern) area was in 2017 at St. Catharines, an event won by Ottawa’s current reigning STOH and world champions, Team Rachel Homan.

Visit Mississauga worked closely with the Toronto Curling Association on the successful bid, which reportedly beat out competing bids from Cornwall, Ont., Estevan, Sask., Lethbridge, Alta. and Charlottetown, PEI.

“Having the Scotties come to the great city of Mississauga for 2026 allows the Toronto Curling Association to expose the wonderful sport of curling at the highest level to our communities to continue our mandate of growing our game at all levels,” said TCA President and host committee co-chair Sean Holman.

“Expanding the footprint of curling in the GTA will be greatly assisted by the excitement this event will bring. Mississauga is a great host and will provide fans and players alike with an unparalleled experience.”

The TCA counts two member facilities in Mississauga, the Dixie Curling Club and Mississauga Golf and Country Club. The Oakville Curling Club is less than a 30-minute drive away from the Paramount Fine Foods Centre, and the Brampton and Chinguacousy clubs are just 20 minutes north.

The venue previously hosted Ontario’s first combined men’s and women’s provincial curling championships in 2003, plus a Grand Slam of Curling tour stop in 2009.

That Slam, the World Cup (i.e. Masters), was originally planned for downtown Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena in October, just weeks before the 2009 Olympic Trials in Edmonton and the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

However, the event was moved to Mississauga due to prohibitive costs and timing issues posed by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the owners of the former Air Canada Centre.

The Slam series has since established a base in Toronto, with the upcoming Players’ Championships scheduled for Mattamy Athletic Centre—the former Maple Leaf Gardens—for the 10th time.

Prior to the Players’ run, the last major curling championship hosted in the city of Toronto was the 1986 world men’s championship at CNE Coliseum, won by Canada’s Ed Lukowich over Scotland’s David Smith.

The Scotties event is sure to provide a boost to a GTA curling scene which has seen four golf and country club facilities abruptly close their curling sections within a few years of each other.

Initial ticket packages will go on sale Feb. 20, 2025, at 10 a.m. ET.

The population of the GTA is expected to top 6,500,000 by 2026.