The World Curling Tour (WCT) is a group of
curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...
bonspiels featuring the best male, female, and
mixed doubles
Mixed doubles or mixed pairs is a form of mixed-sex sports that consists of teams of one man and one woman. This variation of competition is prominent in curling and racket sports, such as tennis, table tennis and badminton (where it is known as ...
curlers in the world.
History
The World Curling Tour was founded by former World Champion
Ed Lukowich
Edward R. "Ed" Lukowich (born March 1, 1946; nicknamed "Cool Hand Luke") is a former Canadian champion curler. Lukowich is a two-time Brier champion, having won the Brier Tankard for Alberta as skip of both the 1978 and 1986 Canadian champion ...
, with later assistance from
John Kawaja.
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
The Seagram Company Ltd. (which traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was once (in the 1990s) the la ...
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
The Players' Championship is one of the final events on the World Curling Tour (WCT) and is a part of the Grand Slam of Curling.
From 2016 to 2019, it was the penultimate slam of the curling season, and the last of the four "majors". The even ...
. Its first president and CEO was Lukowich. The first two events were held on the first weekend of October 1992, the
Red Carpet Classic
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...
in
Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina () is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province, after Saskatoon, and is a commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. As of the 2021 C ...
and a qualifier for the
Coca-Cola Classic
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
in
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
.
In 2001, the WCT introduced a series of
Grand Slam
Grand Slam most often refers to:
* Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves
Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to:
Games and sports
* Grand slam, winning category te ...
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
Briar, Briars, Brier, or Briers may refer to:
* Briar, or brier, common name for a number of unrelated thorny plants that form thicket
People
* Brier (surname)
* Briers, a surname
* Briars (surname)
Places
* Briar, Missouri, U.S.
* Bri ...
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
Scotties is a facial tissue brand originally owned by the Scott Paper Company, created in 1955.
Kimberly-Clark, owner of the rival Kleenex brand, acquired Scott Paper in 1997. For competitive reasons,
Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 246 / Friday ...
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
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.
The system is now a standard in
Curling Canada
Curling Canada (formerly the Canadian Curling Association (CCA)) is a sanctioning body for the sport of Curling in Canada. It is associated with more than a dozen provincial and territorial curling associations across the country, and organizes ...
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.
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.
As of 2018, the Men's and Women's World Curling Tour begins its debut in early August with the
Hokkaido Bank Curling Classic
The Hokkaido Bank Curling Classic is an annual bonspiel on the men's and women's World Curling Tour. It is held annually in early August at the Hokkaido Bank Curling Stadium in Sapporo, Japan. The total purse for the event is ¥ 1,700,000 with ...
and has events taking place all throughout the curling season until the
Champions Cup in late April. 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 are 7 major men's and women's tournaments that are held throughout the year, each with a final cash prize of at least $100,000 for the winning team. These are the
Elite 10, the
Masters, the
Tour Challenge, the
National
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
, the
Canadian Open, the
Players' Championship
The Players' Championship is one of the final events on the World Curling Tour (WCT) and is a part of the Grand Slam of Curling.
From 2016 to 2019, it was the penultimate slam of the curling season, and the last of the four "majors". The even ...
, and the
Champions Cup. Together, these events are 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. There also used to be 2 more Grand Slam events for the women called the
Sobeys Slam
The Sobeys Slam was a former Grand Slam event of the Women's World Curling Tour. It was held annually in November in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.
The event began in 1998 as the Sobeys Curling Classic. It was added as a Grand Slam event for the 2007 ...
and
Wayden Transportation Ladies Classic
The Wayden Transportation Ladies Classic, also known as the Abbotsford Ladies was a Grand Slam event on the Women's World Curling Tour
The World Curling Tour (WCT) is a group of curling bonspiels featuring the best male, female, and mixed dou ...
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
Rogers Communications Inc. is a Canadian communications and media company operating primarily in the fields of wireless communications, cable television, telephony and Internet, with significant additional telecommunications and mass media ass ...
. 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
Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States. It is on the li ...
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. 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.
Men's events
''As of the 2019-2020 curling season''
Grand Slam events indicated in bold.
New events
Some events were added for the 2020–21 season:
Women's events
''As of 2018-2019 curling season''
Grand Slam events indicated in bold.
Mixed doubles events
''As of 2018-2019 curling season''
See also
*
List of teams on the World Curling Tour
*
Ontario Curling Tour The Ontario Curling Tour is a group of curling bonspiels, which takes places in Ontario, Canada and attracts some of the top male and female curlers in the province, and from across the country and world. The OCT was designed to promote competitive ...
References
External links
*
{{World Curling Tour events
Curling tours
Multi-national professional sports leagues
Curling