Martensville Curling Club was host to the Mixed Doubles curling tournament this past weekend which is part of Saskatchewan’s Mixed Doubles Tour.
Tour Coordinator, Sherry Just, explained that the Saskatchewan Mixed Doubles tour started two years ago as there was no way for teams to qualify for provincials for mixed doubles in the province. Provincials use to be open entry only so they went to Curl Sask and proposed few different options. One option was to create a tour and they were given the go ahead.
They have been collaborating with Curl Sask for this tour and are now an associate member with Curl Sk. “There have been four events the last two years plus a berth event for direct entry to Provincials. This year has been very different because of the pandemic, but they have had two events or ‘qualifying leagues’ with the pandemic, with restrictions, acting as a league. The first one was in Saskatoon several weeks ago at the Sutherland Curling Club,” said Just.
The tour events go by a point system plus Canadian mixed doubles ranking points but these are on hold right now because of the pandemic, so they have created a Provincial point system based on money earned for ‘qualifying leagues’ and based on points where people could qualify for provincials.
Teams from Saskatchewan can’t travel for sport right now so they are limited to training and playing only in Saskatchewan. Just states that, “We have seen an influx of teams playing mixed doubles because of the pandemic.”
“We usually have international teams from Australia, China, Korea, Scotland, Norway – all across the world, including Manitoba, Alberta, B.C. and Ontario, but now we are all local. It’s good for Saskatchewan in terms of building the mixed doubles sport in the province and getting the chance for more people to play in the events. We just don’t have the International teams right now, which are nice to have as well, but there will be time for that in the future. Teams are just happy to curl safely where they can.”
There were 16 teams competing in the tournament including a local ‘Remeshylo’ Martensville team. Williamson/Heather team lost to Martin/Laycock in the final. Aberdeen will play host to Provincials in February/2021.
