ESTEVAN - The Estevan Curling Club announced last Wednesday that its bid to host the 2026 Scotties Tournament of Hearts national women's curling championship was unsuccessful.
The club, in partnership with the City of Estevan and Tourism Saskatchewan, submitted a bid at the end of September to Curling Canada to host the event, which is one of the most prestigious in the sport. Curling Canada has notified the ECC that despite a "compelling" bid, it has decided to move forward with another city, with an announcement expected in the near future.
"Although we were ultimately unsuccessful in this bid, we are really proud of the submission and the wonderful response from our community," said ECC president Tyler McMillen. "We gained valuable experience and have been encouraged to bid on future curling events, and we are certain that we will bring a world-class curling event to Estevan in the near future."
McMillen said a suggestion was made to sit down with Curling Canada later this year and have a discussion about the bid, as he said Curling Canada did not give specifics on strengths or weaknesses of the local effort.
McMillen praised the local community support. The City of Estevan and city council were on board, and McMillen said Tourism Saskatchewan was "very helpful". Hotels and businesses showed their support as well.
"We know that we have a strong core group of businesses and volunteers, and our committee that we put together is a lot of the same ones that have been together since 2018, so we have a good knowledge base and a good group of people."
Estevan has previously hosted the 2018 Home Hardware Canada Cup of Curling, the SaskTel Tankard men's curling provincials twice (2018 and 2023) and the Viterra Scotties women's provincials once (2023) in recent years.
The committee members involved in the Scotties bid included Tyler McMillen, Pauline Ziehl Grimsrud, Devon Fornwald, Helen Fornwald, Allison Holzer, Beverly Bund, Pam Dechief, Shirley Hildebrand, Theresa Stepp, Breanne Lees and Jordan Isbister.
McMillen noted there are some marquee curling events that have happened in Saskatchewan, including the 2024 Montana's Brier in Regina and a couple of editions of the Scotties in Moose Jaw in recent years, and additional prominent events are coming, so that might have factored into Curling Canada's decision.
"The good part about curling is the different cities that have held stuff, they'll put a good show on," said McMillen.
Cornwall, Ont., and Lethbridge, Alta., are among the other communities believed to be in the hunt for the 2026 event. There were also reports in the bid process that Summerside or Charlottetown, P.E.I., was interested.
As part of the bid process for the 2026 Scotties, numerous deposits for ticket packages were made. Those who made deposits will be reimbursed in full in January. McMillen did not disclose the number of ticket packages sold because this was the first time the club had tried this process.
"We had those few issues early on, and summer was tough … to get out there and get people excited about curling," said McMillen. "It seemed to pick up when you had the curling that's on TV."
A lot of people were approaching the committee on the street and around town about the bid's status.
"We went door to door to every business, pretty much, in the city, and the volunteers split up and went around. That seemed to help, too, to try to remind people what we were doing."
McMillen expects the committee would take another shot at hosting the Scotties. They picked 2026 because it's an Olympic year, so the tournament would be happening earlier than normal and it wouldn't conflict with hockey playoffs and other ice sports in late February and March. And the committee will look at some of the other events available through Curl Canada for national and even international competitions.
