YORKTON - Wheelchair curling is sliding into the spotlight at the Grand Slam of Curling in September.
The inaugural GSOC Wheelchair Curling Invitational being held Sept. 24-27, will be a rare opportunity for the teams involved to play on arena ice, and at the same put new eyes on the sport.
The Grand Slam of Curling is an annual series of events featuring the top-ranked curling men’s and women’s teams from around the world.
“It has a chance to be really impactful,” said Wheelchair Canada head coach Mick Lizmore.
Lizmore said the profile of wheelchair curling rises every four years with the Paralympics, and that translates “into a spike in interest and an increase in participation.”
However there tends to be what Lizmore termed “a specific audience that is watching” the Paralympics.
The GSOC event will be a slightly different and likely broader audience.
“It’s a great opportunity to show the sport,” said Lizmore.
Lizmore said while they are always hoping to attract new players to the sport, a broader audience can help with things such as advertising and sponsorship, which of course is important to help with sport growth too.
And more players do tend to follow when the sport profile is raised.
“Eyes on the sport . . . goes hand-in-hand with increased participation,” Lizmore told Yorkton This Week.
From a sport perspective Lizmore said wheelchair curlers do not get a lot of opportunities to play arena ice, and while only the final at the GSOC will be on arena ice, it is a step in the right direction.
The inaugural event will feature four teams — Canada Red, Canada White, Great Britain and Italy — with round-robin play running at the KW Granite Club in Waterloo, Ont. The tournament will then move over to the Western Fair Sports Centre in London, Ont., for the bronze and gold medal games, taking place side-by-side with the Grand Slam of Curling’s Masters finals Sept. 28.
It is likely Saskatchewan will feature on the Canadian teams with Gil Dash of Wolseley, Sask., and Moose Jaw’s Marie Wright likely to be involved. Both are multiple Canadian Wheelchair Curling Champions.
Lizmore said inclusion in the GSOC event has been has been an idea floated around for a couple of years largely as a way to get another arena ice opportunity, and he added they hope it proves a success so that it might open doors for additional event inclusion down the road.
“It’s a bit of a proof of concept,” he said, adding the goal is to “find a way to be part of other events on the calendar.”
The Grand Slam of Curling has been an innovator of the sport as the first league to trial such concepts as thinking time; changing the number of ends per game to eight; the five-rock rule; and the no-tick, free-guard zone.
