Scotties Tournament of Hearts

Scotties Tournament of Hearts
*Le Tournoi des Cœurs Scotties*
Scotties Tournament of Hearts; Le Tournoi des Cœurs Scotties
Established	1961; 63 years ago
2025 host city	Thunder Bay, Ontario
2025 arena	Fort William Gardens
2024 champion	Ontario (Rachel Homan)
Current edition
	2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts

The Scotties Tournament of Hearts (French: Le Tournoi des Cœurs Scotties; commonly referred to as the Scotties) is the annual Canadian women's curling championship, sanctioned by Curling Canada, formerly called the Canadian Curling Association. The winner goes on to represent Canada at the women's world curling championships. Since 1985, the winner also gets to return to the following year's tournament as "Team Canada". It is formally known as the "Canadian Women's Curling Championship".

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Since 1982, the tournament has been sponsored by Kruger Products, which was formerly known as Scott Paper Limited when it was a Canadian subsidiary of Scott Paper Company. As such, the tournament was formerly known as the Scott Tournament of Hearts; when Kimberly-Clark merged with Scott, the Canadian arm was sold to the Quebec-based Kruger Inc. – while Kruger was granted a license to use several Scott brands in Canada until June 2007, it was given a long-term license to the Scotties brand because Kimberly-Clark already owned Kleenex. As such, the tournament was officially renamed the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 2007.

Until 2018, the format was a round robin of 12 teams. Starting with the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts there have been more than twelve eligible teams; therefore a pre-qualification tournament was held to trim the field to twelve. In 2021, a new 18-team format was introduced, in which all 14 member associations of Curling Canada field a team in a main draw of two pools, alongside the defending champions, and the three highest-ranked teams on the Canadian Team Ranking System standings that did not win their provincial championships. The teams are separated into two pools of nine, each playing a round-robin within their pool, with the top three teams in each pool advancing to a second round to determine the final four teams.

At the end of the second round, playoffs occur to determine the championship winner. The system used is known as the Page playoff system.

Pre-history

1913 marked a significant point in women's curling when both the Manitoba Bonspiel and the Ontario Curling Association began holding women's curling events. Other provinces would later add provincial women's championships, but it wasn't until the 1950s that a higher level of women's curling began to occur. At this time there was a Western Canada Women's Curling Championship (sponsored by the T. Eaton Company) but no tournament existed for the eastern provinces. By 1959, Eaton's pulled their sponsorship, giving the organizers of the Western championships an initiative to have a national championship.

In 1960, the Canadian Ladies' Curling Association was created with Dominion Stores Ltd. seeking to sponsor a national championship. That year, an eastern championship occurred so that the winner could play the winner of the western championship in an invitational event. In this event, Ruth Smith and her team from Lacolle, Quebec faced off against Joyce McKee's team from Saskatchewan (consisting of Sylvia Fedoruk, Donna Belding and Muriel Coben) with McKee winning the best-of-three series two games to none.^[1] The games between the two teams were played in Oshawa, Ontario.^[2]

The following year a tournament was organized with the same format as the Brier and was held in Ottawa. McKee won again, with a new front end of Barbara MacNevin and Rosa McFee.

Early history

In 1967, Dominion Stores were unable to reach a compromise with the organizers of the tournament, and their sponsorship fell. The Canadian Ladies' Curling Association ran the tournament by themselves with no main sponsor.

Sylvia Fedoruk, after assuming the presidency of the Canadian Ladies' Curling Association found a title sponsor in the Macdonald Tobacco Company, the same sponsor as the Brier. Their sponsorship began in 1972 with the tournament being called the "Macdonald Lassie" championship, after the company's trademark.

In 1979, under increasing pressure from the anti-tobacco policies of the Canadian Government, the Macdonald Tobacco Company pulled their sponsorship from both the Brier and the Women's championship. The Canadian Ladies' Curling Association ran the tournament without a main sponsor again for the next couple of years. 1979 also marked the first year of the Women's World Curling Championship, where the national champion would play. Also, the 1979 event was the first tournament to feature a playoff. Before then, the championship team was the one with the best round robin record.

Tournament of Hearts

Robin Wilson, a member of the 1979 championship team, and a former employee of Scott Paper led an effort to get the company to sponsor the championships.^[3] It was successful, and in 1982 the first Scott Tournament of Hearts was held.

The Scott Tournament of Hearts would last 25 years, and saw the likes of many great teams. The first Tournament of Hearts was won by Colleen Jones and her Nova Scotia team. It would take her 17 years to win another, but she would cap it off with another four championships for a grand total of six championships. In 2018, Colleen Jones' feat of six championships was equaled by Manitoba's Jennifer Jones. Other great curlers at the Hearts have been Kerri Einarson and Connie Laliberte of Manitoba, Heather Houston, Marilyn Bodogh and Rachel Homan of Ontario, Vera Pezer and Sandra Schmirler of Saskatchewan, Cathy Borst, Shannon Kleibrink and Chelsea Carey of Alberta and Lindsay Sparkes and Kelly Scott of British Columbia.

The new sponsorship made the tournament popular when it began to be televised. Today, TSN covers the entire tournament. CBC had covered the semi-finals and the finals up until the 2007–08 season. In 2013, Sportsnet and Citytv began to offer coverage of the finals of the provincial playdowns in Manitoba, Ontario, and Alberta as well.

As a Tournament of Hearts tradition, the members of the winning team receive gold rings in the four-heart design of the Tournament of Hearts logo, set with a .25-carat diamond. The runners-up receive the same rings, with rubies instead of diamonds, and the third-place team receives gold rings set with emeralds.^[4]

Starting with the 2024 tournament, the first all-star team was entitled the Robin Wilson First All-Star Team.^[5]