It’s a curling fan’s dream in Chatham-Kent this week.
The Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling kicks off with the Elite 10 tournament in Chatham this evening.
Kevin Martin appeared in 12 briers, 3 Olympics and 4 world championships and says this tournament will be something special.
“You’ve got an ambassador like Jennifer Jones and this fireplug Anna Hasselborg out of Sweden, they’re pretty good ambassadors to have right now on the women’s side of curling,” Martin explains. “On the men’s you’ve got Niklas Edin that everybody enjoys, and Brad Gushue, every game he plays is a home game because he’s always got the crowd.”
This tournament, which runs through Sunday at Thames Campus Arena, is the first leg of the overall Grand Slam.
The winning teams each earn $24,000 from the $200,000 total purse plus berths to the season-ending Humpty’s Champions Cup in Saskatoon.
The tournament also has a special Wallaceburg flavour.
Shirley Ireland, the recently retired ice maker from the Sydenham Curling Club, is the only female member of the ice-making crew for the Elite 10.
She says there’s a special technique to it. “It has to be totally level, so you have to flood over top of the hockey ice, and then they paint it, and then they put down pebble.”
She says they’ve had some long days leading up to yesterday’s first practices.
“It’s actually an art in itself, because depending on what the ice is doing, it depends on how you pebble it and how you scrape it.”
Ireland and the rest of the ice crew will be on hand to maintain the surface throughout the tournament.
