Curling Canada has announced the 2017 Canadian Junior Men’s and Women’s Curling Championships will be held in Esquimalt.
Using the Archie Browning Sports Centre, teams will battle for a spot to represent Canada at the 2017 World Junior Curling Championships in PyeongChang, South Korea.
“Our city has a rich history of hosting championship curling events, and we know the curlers and fans who will be here in 2017 will be treated to a wonderful experience,” said Keith Dagg, co-chair of the Victoria host committee. “The Archie Browning Sports Centre is a first-class facility that will allow these talented teams to perform at their best.”
This marks the first time Victoria has hosted the Canadian Juniors since 2004 when a pair of Atlantic Canada teams — New Brunswick’s Ryan Sherrard and Nova Scotia’s Jill Mouzar — took gold. Victoria previously hosted the Canadian Junior Men’s Championship (the men’s and women’s events were combined in 1987) in 1979 when Alberta’s Mert Thompsett prevailed.
“We are a curling community with a rich tradition in the sport that includes promoting local youth curling,” said Mayor Barb Desjardins. “I know that visiting athletes and fans will appreciate the impressive upgrades we recently completed at our facility as well.”
Fourteen teams in each gender (representing each of the 10 provinces in addition to Northern Ontario, the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut) will be split into two seven-team pools, with seeding based on win-loss records at the 2016 Canadian Juniors in Stratford, Ont. Teams will play a round robin within their pool.
Canada has won a leading 19 world junior men’s titles since 1975 and 10 women’s crowns since 1988.
The 2016 Canadian Juniors are scheduled for Jan. 23 to 31 in Ontario.
The Canadian champs will then move on to the 2016 World Juniors, March 5 to 13 in Erzurum, Turkey.
