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The future of Canada’s curling will be on full display in Saskatoon next February.
The nation’s young curling stars will converge on the city to compete at the 2025 Canadian Under-18 Curling Championships, Curling Canada announced Friday.
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The event — to be held at the Nutana Curling Club from Feb. 16 to 22 — will attract 42 teams (21 male, 21 female) from across Canada.
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It will be their first national championship exposure for most of these young competitors.
Since its inception seven years ago, the U-18 event has featured numerous players who’ve gone on to success at the under-21 level. Many of them later earned spots on today’s top men’s and women’s high-performance teams.
“Since we introduced the Canadian Under-18 Championships in 2017, it has become one of most popular and eagerly anticipated events on our competitive calendar, as well as a crucial piece of our high performance athlete development program,” Curling Canada CEO Nolan Thiessen said in a news release.
“Saskatoon has proven, time and time again, that it knows how to put on amazing curling events, and we know that players, coaches and fans will have a memorable experience in 2025.”
The provincial and territorial male and female under-18 champions from Curling Canada’s 14 member associations (10 provinces, three territories, Northern Ontario) will receive invitations to compete in Saskatoon.
The hosting member association, CurlSask, gets a second invitation to the event. As well, the top-six ranked member associations based on the standings of the previous two events will receive invitations (rankings exclude the host Saskatchewan association).
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It will be the first time Saskatchewan hosts the Canadian Under-18 Championships, but it’s just one of many major curling events to be staged in Saskatoon. Most recently, the city hosted the Masters Grand Slam of Curling event in December at Merlis Belsher Place. The city also hosted the 2021 Canadian Curling Trials, which decided Canada’s Olympic four-player entries for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
“Being able to see our country’s top up-and-coming players under one roof in Saskatoon will be a wonderful opportunity, and we’re excited to welcome the Canadian Under-18 Championships to our province for the first time,” said CurlSask executive director Steve Turner.
At the most recent Canadian Under-18 Championships, in February at Ottawa, teams from Manitoba (skipped by Shaela Hayward) and Newfoundland/Labrador (skipped by Simon Perry) claimed the female and male championships respectively.
In the six-year history of the Canadian Under-18 championships (2020 and 2021 events were cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic), Alberta and Northern Ontario have each won two female national titles, while Nova Scotia and Manitoba have each claimed one.
On the male side, there have been six different winners — Newfoundland/Labrador, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario and Northern Ontario.
“We’re proud that Curling Canada has shown its faith in us to host a major event such as this, and we are ready to make the 2025 Canadian Under-18 Championships a special time for players, family members, coaches and fans,” said Nutana Curling Club general manager Kory Kohuch.
“We have a lot of work to do to get ready, but we have a great base of members who want to put on a first-class show in 2025.”
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