After plans for Ottawa to host the World Men’s Curling Championship were dashed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, the World Curling Federation announced Friday that the tournament will return to the nation’s capital in 2023.
The tournament will take place April 1-9 at TD Place in Lansdowne Park, and tickets are expected to go on sale in September.
The team representing Canada will be decided at the Tim Hortons Brier in London, Ont., in March.
Elaine Brimicombe, vice-chair of the Ottawa Host Committee, said in a news release Friday that an “amazing group of volunteers” in the Ottawa Valley are excited to get to work after the 2021 event was relocated to a bubble in Calgary.
“It was such a disappointment when we couldn’t host in 2021, but we went right back to work to prepare for today’s announcement,” Brimicombe was quoted as saying.
Katherine Henderson, CEO of Curling Canada, said Ottawa had “made it crystal clear to us that while they understood the decision that had to be made for the 2021 championship, they wanted this World Men’s Championship in their city as quickly as possible.”
Ottawa has hosted the Brier at TD Place four times in the past: 2016, 2001, 1993 and 1979. The Roar of the Rings, Canada’s Olympic curling trials, also took place in the city in 2017.
The men’s world championship was most recently held in Ontario in 1996, when Canada’s Jeff Stoughton won gold in Hamilton. In 1986, Canada’s Ed Lukowich won in Toronto, and in 1981, Switzerland’s Jürg Tanner won in London.
This will be Canada’s 26th time hosting the championship. Canadian men’s teams have won 35 world championships since the event’s inception in 1959 — the most recent in 2017, with Brad Gushue’s rink winning gold in Edmonton.
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