It’s been all hands on deck at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax as crews and volunteers get ready for the Canadian Curling Trials that’s just days away. They are installing fresh ice, leveling it to precision, and getting set up for some of the top curlers from across Canada to arrive. “In curling this is the pinnacle of what we call a quadrennial of the four year cycle of teams competing all around Canada and the world, trying to do better, practicing all the time for this one event, to win to wear that maple leaf,” says Rob Belliveau, 2025 Canadian Curling Vice Chair. The first draw will take place Saturday at 2 p.m. The trials will consist of 16 teams, eight men’s teams and eight women’s. They will compete over the next week and a half, including some Olympic gold medalists and world champions. “We’ve had the 2005 trials were here and the 2010 world men were here, and we have had previous brier’s here so there is a track record. After this we will see where we go with another one,” adds Belliveau. This is not the first year Halifax has hosted these trials, although this year the Canadian Curling Trials team expects the biggest turnout yet. “I’d love to see every one of these seats full for every game. Right now, we still have some tickets left earlier in the week so if people were looking, they should get online and get those now. For the closing weekend we are almost sold out so you can imagine almost 10,000 people here cheering on the winning team,” says Belliveau. Belliveau says it’s truly a team effort to host something this size, with more than 500 volunteers helping out. Stephen Mayo is one volunteer on the ice crew, this will be his third time volunteering for a curling event like this. He helped with the Doubles Trials in Liverpool last December and the pre-trials about a month ago in Wolfville. “When this opportunity came up I thought it was a great opportunity to learn from the very best ice makers in the world and increase my own knowledge on ice making so I can take it back home and apply it at my club,” says Mayo. “The ice is in and it’s almost playable. They have to do a complete conversion of the arena, taking out the glass, we have to build the ice up so that involved levelling the ice that was there for hockey, going over it, painting it, putting in all the deckles and putting in the rings, they are measured down to a fraction of a fraction of a millimeter because those distances matter when a team is trying to get close to what we call the pin and that can be the Olympics on the line,” adds Belliveau. The round robin games will go until Wednesday then its on to playoffs with the top teams. One different thing about this year is the way the finals will run. “One of the unique things that curling hasn’t really been done before is the finals. It’s not just one final game, its actually best 2 out of 3 so it could end on Saturday night but we could also have a third game on Sunday,” Belliveau says. Tickets are purchased online. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
