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The South Shore is set to host the best curlers from around Canada this fall as they’ve been selected as the host city for the 2021 Home Hardware Curling Pre-Trials.
The event is of particular importance as it will determine the final two men’s and two women’s teams that will compete at the 2021 Tim Hortons Curling Trials 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.”
The Queens Place Emera Centre will be set up to host the event as it provides more space than the local curling club. During normal times it can seat around 1,000 people.
Whether fans can attend or not has yet to be determined and Curling Canada says they will make an announcement on that in the future.
In recent years Liverpool has hosted some significant curling competitions. In 2015, the town 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.
“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.”
The events format and qualification process have yet to be determined but they are expected to be ironed out in the next few months.
