The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company to be presenting sponsor.
OTTAWA, December 4, 2008…The Canadian Curling Association (CCA) and Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) today announced that the 2009 Canadian University Curling Championships (CUCC) will be held in Montreal.
The CUCC will be played March 25-29, 2009, with round robin games at both the Royal Montreal Curling Club and Montreal West Curling Club. The playoffs will be held at Royal Montreal. The championships are being hosted by both Royal Montreal and the Association of Montreal Curling Clubs.
Twelve men’s and 12 women’s teams, representing universities in each of the 10 provinces, plus two additional teams from Ontario, are expected to participate. They’ll be divided into two pools of six teams and incorporate a cross-over playoff system. Teams will have either won their respective university championship or will have been selected by the university to be its representative.
In a related announcement, the CCA also revealed that The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company (The Dominion) has signed an agreement to be the presenting sponsor of the Canadian University Curling Championships for the next three years, through 2011. The Dominion, one of Canada’s largest property and casualty insurers, recently renewed its commitment as an official supplier to the CCA’s Season of Champions and also announced the launch of The Dominion Curling Club Championship, a national event beginning in 2009, for men’s and women’s teams which have won their respective local club championships.
Last March, the CCA and CIS partnered to present the Canadian University Curling Championships at the Guelph and Elora Curling Clubs, with the University of Waterloo acting as host. The winning men’s and women’s teams, skipped by Mike Anderson and Hollie Nicol, respectively, both represented the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks and will now carry Canada’s colours at FISU’s (Federation Internationale de Sport Universitaire) 24th Winter Universiade in Harbin, China, February 18-28, 2009. Canadian teams won gold medals at the Universiade in 2003 in Tarvisio, Italy, by Brandon University skip Mike McEwen and in 2007 in Torino, Italy, by skip Brittany Gregor, from the University of Calgary.
FISU conducts the Universiade every two years. Therefore, with no 2010 Universiade, the winners of the 2009 CUCC, presented by The Dominion, will instead represent Canada at the 2010 Karuizawa Invitational in Japan in late February, a bonspiel which began a year after the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. Canada has enjoyed great success at the Karuizawa Invitational, having won in 2004 (Brian Gessner and Cheryl Bernard), 2005 (Pat Simmons), 2006 (Ryan Fry and Crystal Webster), 2007 (Julie Reddick) and 2008 (Joel Jordison).