For several days now, our most popular story on PEICurling.com has not been one about the current Brier or provincial championships, but one we wrote in back in June 2012 on the subject of Relegation. Here it is again:

The Canadian Curling Association’s Annual General Meeting was held last weekend in Ottawa. One of the decisions made is that the “Equitable Opportunity to Access Canadian Championships”  that was approved at the AGM in 2010 for the 2012 Canadian Mixed and Canadian Senior Curling Championships, will now be expanded to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and Tim Hortons Brier starting in the 2014-2015 season. Team Canada (the 2014 Brier winner) will be added to the Brier competition, while Northern Ontario will be added to the Tournament of Hearts, starting in 2015. Nunavut, Yukon and the Northwest Territories would compete as separate entities, making a total of 15 teams.

This new arrangement is expected to include a “relegation” event in advance of the championship, whereby the lower ranked teams would square off in that event, with the losing teams going home before the championship, and has met with disfavour by most of the smaller provinces, who fear that their team may not be able to complete at the national championship every year.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Brad Gushue, whose team now includes PEI natives Adam Casey and Brett Gallant, said at last season’s Brier, as quoted in the official CCA publication “Tankard Times“, that relegation could cost the event the thing that makes it most special – the celebration of Canadiana. “What will all the fans do? If you don’t know if your province or territory is going to be there for the full Brier week, you’re not likely to book flights and hotel rooms to go and be part of it and cheer them on,” he said. “Look at the scene here with 10,000 fans in the stands and fans from every province in Canada. Why would you want to change this?”

PEI’s Brier and Scotties skips also had concerns about the change. Mike Gaudet said:
“For me, I think it would be a shame for a team to have a poor week and ruin it for a young team the next year coming up that could conceivably be very successful.
I look back in the past when Northern Ontario had a very poor year and Brad Jacobs a year or two later comes up and makes the playoffs. What happens then, you know?
“But I think, realistically, it has to be up to the fans. It’s not like I’m going to change anything. But my opinion is, if it went to relegation or whatever, it might just force my retirement.
“It would be a different tournament, so once you go that way you can’t go back.
They have to be careful what they’re doing. I mean, are these fans here wrong?
“What would it do for P.E.I.? At the junior level we’re having a hard enough time keeping the juniors staying in it as it is. If the road’s that much harder to get to the big stage, then it’s obviously going to tail off, I think.
“Why change it? That’s why I think they have to ask the fans. I don’t think that many fans are going to be wrong.
They obviously enjoy watching the format the way it is. But who knows what the CCA is thinking?”

PEI Scotties skip Kim Dolan added:
“We’re trying to grow the game and we need the challenge in order to get to events like these. Not just to be seen at a challenge round like that. We need to keep the young people interested because our numbers have dropped off a little bit.
“I can’t see it helping our province at all, in terms of keeping the interest of people who want to be involved in the game. I believe if it isn’t broken don’t fix it.”

Other highlights from the AGM included an expanded Curling Assistance Program, a new Canadian Mixed Doubles championship, and a new way to time games, that has proved very popular in trials to-date.