World Curling Tour

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
World Curling Tour
SportCurling
Founded1992
FounderEd Lukowich
Official websitehttps://worldcurlingtour.org

The World Curling Tour (WCT) is a group of curling bonspiels featuring the best male, female, and mixed doubles curlers in the world.

History

The World Curling Tour was founded by former World Champion Ed Lukowich, with later assistance from John Kawaja.[1]

The World Curling Tour commenced in 1992, with men's events only at first. It replaced the "Canadian Curling Tour" held the previous season. The first season consisted of 48 events (with only one outside Canada), and was sponsored by

Seagram's distillery. Teams earned points in every event with the top 30 qualifying for the season ending "V.O. Cup", today known as the Players' Championship. Its first president and CEO was Lukowich.[2] The first two events were held on the first weekend of October 1992, the Red Carpet Classic in Regina, Saskatchewan and a qualifier for the Coca-Cola Classic in Winnipeg.[3]

In 2001, the WCT introduced a series of

Grand Slam events for men which was later followed in 2006 by Grand Slam events for women. These became known as the Grand Slam of Curling and featured large payouts. Originally, curlers who participated in Grand Slam events were obliged to not participate in their respective Brier
playdowns, however this was quickly rescinded.

Most WCT events are held in the Fall, and early Winter to avoid competing with the Brier and Scotties playdowns.

The WCT is experimenting with length of games in two interesting ways. The first is that the games are only eight ends long with a 4th end break. The second is that the time clocks only count "thinking time", so the clock goes off when the players throw the rock. The reason is that time clocks, an innovation created to speed up the game, would stop as soon as the stone stopped. With the old system where teams were given 73 minutes of time[4] if a team was losing, they would throw more draw shots which take time. The team that is winning throws more hits and thus ends up with more time if needed. So the WCT moved to "Thinking time" to even out this discrepancy. With this new system, each team is given 40 minutes of “Thinking Time” plus an additional 5 minutes if the game goes to an extra end.[4] The system is now a standard in Curling Canada championship events, though with a 38-minute limit for standard 10-end curling (four minutes for extra ends) and 22 minutes for mixed doubles. The 2018 Canada Cup experimented with breaking the time down by ends — four minutes per end in the first half of the game, and four minutes, 15 seconds in the second half; if time runs out, the offending team can play no more rocks in the end.[5]

The team with the most winnings at the end of the year wins the Founders Trophy. The winners in 2007 were Kevin Martin's team who won a total of $176,000.

A separate Women's World Curling Tour existed, until it was merged into the WCT in 2005.[6]

Each of the bonspiel events on the World Curling Tour lasts for approximately 3 days with a final payoff ranging in the thousands of dollars for the winners.

There were 7 major men's and women's tournaments that were held throughout the year, each with a final cash prize of at least $100,000 for the winning team. These were the

Canadian Open, the Players' Championship, and the Champions Cup. Together, these events were known as Grand Slam events because of the large payoff that is associated with them as well as the number of high-level curlers that play in these tournaments. These events are now part of the World Team Ranking System. There also used to be 2 more Grand Slam events for the women called the Sobeys Slam and Wayden Transportation Ladies Classic
but these were discontinued in 2010.

On October 2, 2006, the license of rights for the Grand Slam of Curling was sold to Insight Sports Ltd. but was later sold again in August 2012 to Rogers Communications.[7] The WCT naming rights were then sold to Asham, a long time contributor to the sport, until 2014 and because of this, the World Curling Tour was renamed Asham's World Curling Tour. The Grand Slam was originally simply called the Grand Slam of Curling until 2008 when the rights were sold by the CBC to Capital One bank which renamed the Grand Slam the Capital One Grand Slam of Curling. Unlike the other World Curling Tour events, these Grand Slams they are played in 8-end games as opposed to the usual 10 end games found in the other WCT events. Another new rule that was first put into practice at the men's nationals in 2014 is the 5 rock rule which increased the 4 rock rule and free guard zone rule by another rock.[8] This changed the starting strategy of the game as the team with the hammer was able to throw up two guards uncontested instead of the usual 1 allowed with the previously used 4 rock rule. Through the addition of the Grand Slam events and the new rule changes, the WCT is rapidly becoming a well known series to sports fans worldwide.

On June 28, 2017, the Canadian-based World Curling Tour officially merged with the European and Asian based Curling Champions Tour to create a worldwide entity focused on growing the game on the international stage. The World Curling Tour World rights holder is now the Zurich Switzerland-based company CCT Event GmbH. This merger has also led to the growth of a Mixed Doubles tour, along with adding Junior and Wheelchair curling tours to expand the offering.[9]

Throughout the 2010's, the Men's and Women's World Curling Tour began in early August with the Hokkaido Bank Curling Classic and had events taking place all throughout the curling season until the Champions Cup in late April. Following the COVID-19 pandemic that cancelled the majority of the events during the 2020–21 season, a large majority of the tour events that made up the WCT left the tour, leaving only a handful of European events. The rest of the events continued to be played on the new World Team Ranking System.

Events

Men

As of the 2023-2024 curling season[10]

Week Event Location Purse
1 Morioka Ice Rink Memorial Cup Morioka, Japan ¥ 195,000
11 Baden Masters Baden, Switzerland CHF 35,000
17 WCT Tallinn Mens Challenger Tallinn, Estonia 3,000
18 Prague Open Prague, Czech Republic 4,000
21 WCT Latvian International Challenger Tukums, Latvia 3,000
21 GP Bern Inter Bern, Switzerland CHF 18,100
22 Blazing Leaves Bridgeport, Connecticut $4,500 (US)
23 Prague Classic Prague, Czech Republic 13,500
28 WCT Łódź Men's International Łódź, Poland 4,000
34 Belgium Men's Challenger Zemst, Belgium 2,800

Women

As of the 2023-2024 curling season[11]

Week Event Location Purse
17 Prague Ladies International Prague, Czech Republic 7,500
21 WCT Latvian International Challenger Tukums, Latvia 3,000
22 Blazing Leaves Bridgeport, Connecticut $3,200 (US)
22 WCT Tallinn Ladies Challenger Tallinn, Estonia 3,000
30 New Year Medalist Curling Miyota, Japan ¥ 2,000,000
32 Cortina Curling Cup Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy 20,000
34 International Bernese Ladies Cup Bern, Switzerland 4,000
38 Prague Open Prague, Czech Republic 3,000

Mixed doubles

As of the 2023-2024 curling season[12]

Week Event Location Purse
14 Mixed Doubles Prague Open Prague, Czech Republic 3,500
16 WCT Tallinn Mixed Doubles International Tallinn, Estonia 3,325
19 WCT Austrian Mixed Doubles Cup Kitzbühel, Austria 3,200
21 WCT Mixed Doubles Cup Geising Geising, Germany 2,000
22 WCT Slovakia Mixed Doubles Cup I Bratislava, Slovakia 2,300
23 WCT Mixed Doubles Łódź Łódź, Poland 3,500
25 WCT Latvian Mixed Doubles Curling Cup I Riga, Latvia
34 Gefle Mixed Doubles Cup Gävle, Sweden 4,500
39 Hvidovre Mixed Doubles Cup Hvidovre, Denmark
41 WCT Slovakia Mixed Doubles Cup II Bratislava, Slovakia
44 WCT Latvian Mixed Doubles Curling Cup II Riga, Latvia

See also

References

  1. ^ "Pro tour gains momentum". Ottawa Citizen. October 14, 1992. p. 55. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
  2. ^ "The Wrench eagerly awaiting pro tour". Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. October 8, 1992. p. 18. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
  3. ^ "Curling tour starts quietly". Regina Leader-Post. October 7, 1992. p. 18. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
  4. ^ a b "Updated Curling Rule Book alters 'thinking time' rules". Island sports news. September 2012. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
  5. ^ Horne, Ryan (8 December 2018). "New timing rules getting mixed reviews at Canada Cup". TSN. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  6. ^ "Players' Championship title toughest to get your hands on". Calgary Herald. April 13, 2006. p. F3. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  7. ^ "Asham CurlingZone". CurlingZone. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
  8. ^ Landry, Don. "Grand Slam of Curling: Five-rock rule comes to The National. Does the game need it or something more?". Yahoo sports Canada. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
  9. ^ "CurlingZone – Everything Curling". dev.curlingzone.com. Retrieved 2017-06-28.
  10. ^ "2023–24 World Curling Tour: Men's Schedule". World Curling Tour. Retrieved August 9, 2023.
  11. ^ "2023–24 World Curling Tour: Women's Schedule". World Curling Tour. Retrieved August 9, 2023.
  12. ^ "2023–24 World Curling Tour: Mixed Doubles Schedule". World Curling Tour. Retrieved August 9, 2023.

External links