(By Jason Malloy)
A play-in tournament for Canada’s national men’s and women’s curling championships will be gone after 2017.
Curling Canada/Michael Burns photo
Curling Canada made the announcement Monday after its annual general meeting concluded Friday in Collingwood, Ont.
The association will work with stakeholders and partners to come up with a new format for its 2018 pilot project.
“It’s a great day for both P.E.I. and Canadian curling,” said Connor MacPhee, who initiated an online petition last year that collected 2,500 signatures against the play-in tournament. “I believe that regardless of what part of Canada you live, or what your involvement in curling may be, there was lots of support from curlers not to relegate teams at our national championships.”
This was the first season four teams had to play a pre-qualifying tournament, or what some people called a relegation round, to qualify for either the Scotties Tournament of Hearts or the Tim Hortons Brier.
“It was hard to watch the teams go home after not qualifying for the event,” said Suzanne Birt, who skipped the Island squad at the Scotties. “It’s heartbreaking.”
The play-in system will continue to be used for 2016 and 2017 before the change is implemented in 2018 to remain consistent with the Olympic quadrennial.