It was announced earlier this month that Curling Alberta was forced to cancel its men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles provincial championships due to conditions related to COVID-19 pandemic, marking 2021 as the first time in Alberta’s curling history that a provincial championship will not be held to name its representatives at the Brier, Scotties, and Mixed Doubles Canadian Curling Championships. Yesterday, Curling Alberta’s Board of Directors met to face the challenge of naming Alberta’s representatives using some other criterion. In the end, winning last season’s Alberta Provincial Curling Championships will progress teams to the national championships, meaning that Team Brendan Bottcher, Team Laura Walker, and Team Brittany Tran/Aaron Sluchinski will be in the Calgary bubble scheduled to kick off in February.
“This was an extremely difficult decision for Curling Alberta’s Board of Directors,” stated Steven Young, President of Curling Alberta. “As a province, we were faced with a unique set of circumstances in unprecedented times. No one could predict that we would be forced to make a decision like this, which we tried to avoid by pushing hard to host our championships.”
