WINNIPEG – The Fort Rouge Curling Club will be celebrating their 100th anniversary season by hosting a national event.
Curling Canada announced the Fort Rouge Curling Club had the winning bid to host the 56th edition of the Canadian Mixed Championship.
“The board, the management and the staff were really excited about hosting this opportunity.” the events co-chair Brad McLean said. “It’s a prestigious event.”
Even though it’s technically the 2019 Canadian Mixed Championship, the event will be contested later this year from November 5-10.
It’ll be the second straight year the national four-player mixed championship is hosted in Manitoba after Swan River held this past year’s bonspiel. But it’ll be just the fourth time the event has been staged in Winnipeg and the first since back in 1981.
The Fort Rouge Curling Club last hosted a major event in 2016 for the Manitoba Senior Championship.
“The last 10, 12 years we’ve spent over 1.5 million dollars on capital projects, improvements.” McLean said. “We’ve got a great facility, a great base of volunteers and our motto is the home of friendly curling, so we’re really looking forward to this opportunity.”
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According to McLean the club has over 1500 members so they’ll have a strong volunteer base to work from.
“The Fort Rouge has done other events, provincial events.” said co-chair Deb McCreanor. “So now we get to showcase a Canadian event, so we’re pretty excited.”
The winner of the Canadian Mixed Championship will represent the country at the World Mixed Championship.
Manitoba teams have won the national mixed title on eight different occasions. Ernie Boushy won the first ever Canadian Mixed back in 1964 and again two years later. Jeff Stoughton won the national mixed crown twice in 1988 and again in 1991. Sean Grassie skipped the last mixed championship team from Manitoba back in 2009.
Ontario’s Mike Anderson won the 2018 Canadian mixed title.
WATCH: Co-Chairs Brad McLean and Deb McCreanor on Fort Rouge CC getting the Canadian Mixed Championship
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