Curling hub network expands to B.C., Saskatchewan, Ontario, another in Alberta

Curling Canada is expanding regional high-performance training hubs to Victoria, Okotoks, Alta., Moose Jaw, Sask., and Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.

Clubs in those communities join Winnipeg, in its second year after a pilot project, and long-established training centres in Calgary and Edmonton to create a network that can mimic arena ice conditions, offer technology to enhance shotmaking and sweeping, and provide high-level coaching.

“The challenge for Canada is just the sheer size of the country,” said Curling Canada high-performance director David Murdoch.

“We have national training centres located in Alberta, but how do other athletes get access to those types of resources? How do we create something in these facilities where we create the next future Rachel Homan or Brad Jacobs?

“We’d like to think by creating this type of facility with the right programming, the right coaches, we can accelerate our under-18, under-21, under-25 programs. They would be able to go there more often, train there more often, maybe they’ll actually live close to it.”

When Murdoch accepted the Curling Canada job three years ago, he envisioned regional training hubs across the country to serve the nation’s top curlers and teams, as well as the next generation in the sport, in those specific geographical areas.

Provincial and territorial associations were invited to apply with a proposed funding model as part of the criteria.

The Victoria Curling Club, Okotoks Curling Club, Moose Jaw Curling Centre at Temple Gardens Centre, and the KW Granite Club were successful applicants to get training centres up and running this fall.

“Every province or territory that’s going to be part of this is going to cut their own cloth a little bit,” Murdoch said. “It needs to work for them, it needs to work with the funding they have, it needs to work with staff.”

Murdoch wants Quebec and Atlantic Canada in the network soon, and believes Nova Scotia hosting the Olympic pretrials and trials later this year could accelerate a regional hub on the East Coast.

The Saville Community Sports Centre on Edmonton’s University of Alberta campus and Calgary’s Glencoe Club had training centre designations predating Murdoch’s arrival.

Winnipeg’s Heather club dedicated two sheets to high performance. Ice availability is more fluid in Moose Jaw.

“When there’s an event not here on the weekend, we have potentially all the sheets at our disposal at certain times,” said two-time Canadian men’s champion Pat Simmons, who is Curl Sask’s high-performance director overseeing the program.

“We’re going to have all the tools here as well. Camera systems, laser speed traps, everything through Curl Sask at our disposal, we have here for teams. The goal is to give them a training environment that’s conducive to building championship curlers.”

Easy to get to was a primary consideration for the hubs, Murdoch said.

“It couldn’t be a four-hour drive from a major airport,” he stated.

“The second part was we need ice conditions, we need good technology, so they had to install that or be capable of delivering those in this time frame as part of the project.

“The cost of the ice needed to be subsidized or reduced so our athletes could go in there, they get the things they need, and that’s good ice and accessible times, whether that’s during the day or some programming for our junior programs post school.”

Simmons expects Mike McEwen’s team to show up in Moose Jaw for training ahead of the Grand Slam of Curling’s HearingLife Tour Challenge in Nisku, Alta., in October.

The primary target demographic, however, is the under-25 curler, for whom the leap to the elite stage can be daunting.

“Basically, those age groups all the way down to under-18s and those teens just beginning the under-18 journey,” Simmons explained. “We’re putting our main emphasis on that, but of course, not overlooking teams that are in the Olympic trials or pretrials or whatnot.

“The big thing is unified language and teaching. We need to, across the country, do a better job of educating our coaches, and also do that in the same way. If a team was here, and then they went to an East Coast training centre, a lot of the same things would be said, the same messaging, the same way of teaching it, the same conclusions based on what people are seeing.

“Those are the steps we need to take from a country standpoint to then give our younger players coming up the best chance to develop as quickly and fully as possible, and the coaches alongside them.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2025.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press