Nunavut pulls out of national curling championship over lack of team, Iqaluit rink

Without a full team and with Iqaluit’s curling rink currently unavailable, Nunavut withdrew from this year’s Canadian women’s curling championship.

Curling Canada announced Monday that Nunavut won’t compete at the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts next month in Calgary.

The 18-team tournament brings together Canada’s top female curlers, with the winning team advancing to compete as Team Canada at a world championship.

It was the players’ decision to withdraw, according to Alison Taylor, who has curled for Nunavut at the last two Scotties tournaments.

Some of her teammates are taking a break from the team this year, she said in an interview.

“A few of us made the decision that this wasn’t the right year; we just don’t have the time and the capacity at this point to prepare adequately,” Taylor said.

“I’m disappointed that there’s no team, but this is an opportunity for us to reset, plan, generate interest and figure out what the next year and a half is going to look like to get us back to the national stage.”

Meanwhile, Iqaluit curlers currently don’t have access to their rink.

Peter Van Strien, president of the Iqaluit Curling Club and a Nunavut Curling Association board member, said the club’s city-owned rink is being rented out to a film production company.

As a consequence, curlers don’t have a place in the community where they can train and prepare for a national competition.

“I think one of the contributing factors would have been that we’re losing access to our rink, we lost it as of yesterday, basically,” Van Strien said on Monday.

“I think it had to be a factor that they weren’t really able to train as a new team leading up to a big event like the Scotties.”

The Scotties tournament will replace Nunavut with another team in the Curling Canada ranking system.

Nunavut has been a participant in the Scotties since 2016, the first year in which all 13 provinces and territories sent teams. Nunavut’s best year was in 2020 when a team skipped by Lori Eddy won two games and lost seven.

In the last three tournaments, teams skipped by Eddy and Brigitte MacPhail went winless in eight games at each event.

Al Cameron, a spokesperson for Curling Canada, said the organization is disappointed Nunavut won’t be at this year’s Scotties because it values the territory’s presence at the tournaments.

“We do take pride in the fact that we have equitable access for all of Canada’s provinces and territories, including Nunavut,” Cameron said in an interview.

“This is a disappointment, but we’ll continue to work with the Nunavut Curling Association to ensure that they do continue to attend all of our national events.”

Teams of young curlers are still set to represent Nunavut at the Arctic Winter Games this March in Alaska; however, questions remain about where they will train leading up to the event.

As well, Nunavut will send a team to the 2024 Montana’s Brier, Canada’s men’s championship, in Regina in March.

Van Strien said the Brier team will have time to prepare in the south and participate in some practice tournaments.

“Despite the last few years, which have been challenging because, you know, COVID and then the closure because of the water crisis and then the short season this year, we’ve had a really great participation and an increase in members,” Taylor said.

“Ultimately, we want to see a number of teams playing down for the Scotties and I think we’ll get there.”