A last chance at potential Olympic glory will be on the line when the 2021 Home Hardware Curling Pre-Trials are staged in October in Liverpool, N.S.
Opening ceremony of the 2019 World Junior Curling Championship at Queens Place Emera Centre in Liverpool, N.S. (Photo, World Curling Federation/Richard Gray)
The 2021 Home Hardware Curling Pre-Trials will take place Oct. 26-31 at Queens Place Emera Centre in Liverpool, it was announced today by Curling Canada.
The Home Hardware Curling Pre-Trials will determine the final two men’s and two women’s teams that will compete at the 2021 Tim Hortons Curling Trials, presented by AGI, Nov. 20-28 in Saskatoon — the event that will decide Canada’s four-player men’s and women’s teams for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
“The Home Hardware Curling Pre-Trials have traditionally been a high-intensity, pressure-packed event with teams chasing their Olympic dreams,” said Mitch Minken, Chair of Curling Canada’s Board of Governors. “Liverpool has proven repeatedly in the past that it not only has a wonderful facility for hosting, it also has a dedicated and enthusiastic volunteer community that will make this event a huge success.”
With lingering uncertainty about arena capacity due to evolving health protocols with the COVID-19 pandemic, ticket details won’t be available until a later date, but Curling Canada and the host committee will be in constant contact with local, provincial and national health authorities to make sure athletes, fans and the host community are as safe as possible.
“I am very excited that in October, Queens Place Emera Centre in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, will play host to its third major curling event, with some of Canada’s finest men and women curlers competing in the 2021 Home Hardware Pre-Trials,” said Darlene Norman, Mayor of Region of Queens Municipality. “Thanks to the efforts of the Liverpool Championship Host Society, the community looks forward to giving the athletes a Queens Coast welcome and showing them Nova Scotian hospitality throughout the competition.”
Queens Place Emera Centre, home to the Nova Scotia Junior Hockey League’s Liverpool Privateers, seats around 1,000 people, and has a history of hosting significant curling events.
In 2015, the arena played host to the Canadian Junior (Under-21) Curling Championships, and four years later welcomed the 2019 World Junior Curling Championships, where Canada’s Tyler Tardi won the men’s gold medal and Selena Sturmay took the women’s silver medal.
“Home Hardware is proud to be the title sponsor of the 2021 Home Hardware Curling Pre-Trials,” said Kevin Macnab, President and CEO, Home Hardware Stores Limited. “We are so pleased to support curling — a sport that unites and inspires so many. We look forward to cheering on our athletes and celebrating with Canadians from coast-to-coast.”
It will be the fourth edition of the Home Hardware Curling Pre-Trials; previous host cities were Prince George, B.C., in 2009; Kitchener, Ont., in 2013; and Charlottetown in 2017.
in 2013 at Kitchener, Team Brad Jacobs and Team John Morris won the men’s berths into the Tim Hortons Curling Trials, and a month later would meet in the final of the Trials in Winnipeg, with Team Jacobs winning and then going on to win gold at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
“The South Shore of Nova Scotia is one of the most beautiful parts of our province, and the people there have shown repeatedly that they know how to put on major curling events,” said Virginia Jackson, Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Curling Association. “The curling teams that come to Liverpool will, of course, have the Olympics on their mind but they will be treated to a first-class facility and first-class host committee, which will make it a first-class event.”
Still to be determined will be the event format and how teams will qualify for the Home Hardware Curling Pre-Trials. Those details will be ironed out as more information is made available about how, and which, curling events will be staged in the fall.
“The Liverpool Championship Host Society was very excited to get the news from Curling Canada that we will be hosting the 2021 Home Hardware Pre-Trials,” said Host Committee Chair Greg Thorbourne. “We are looking forward to welcoming another major curling event to Liverpool, and we’ll be hard at work over the next several months to make it an outstanding event that will send all players and guests home with incredible memories.”