The Strathcona Cup is the oldest international curling competition going on since 1902 pitting rivals Canada and Scotland. The cup was sponsored and named in honour of one of the men, Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona, who is pictured in the famous Canadian photo of “the last spike”.
The event is played every five years, the last held in 2018 in Scotland. This year there are three tours in Canada; an east, central and western, with 20 Scottish curlers in each. Each tour will play 33 mini tournaments, in as many stops to local curling clubs in a four week period. The Simcoe Curling Club is honoured to host the central group on Tuesday January 17. The visitors will be arriving from London where they will have played the day before. There will be four Simcoe teams that will compete in four games versus the Scots.
Every game on the tour is important to both rivals. All the scores are accumulative over the three tours so it is important for both sides to do as well as possible at each curling club. Canada won in 2018 and that was the first time the Canadians had won on foreign soil so there will a good grudge match this year with the Scots having something to work for.
Interesting to note that all the Scots that are traveling are chosen by what each has done to enhance or contribute to the game of curling eg coaching, instructing LTC (learn to curl), curling club board members etc and each member must be sponsored by a past participant. You can only travel one time. This is the same for Canadian curlers traveling to Scotland in five years.
We hope to have lots of pomp and pageantry, with a piper welcoming the visitors off the bus, a hardy greeting from our Simcoe club members and curlers on entering the club and a piping onto the ice with our traditional piper scotch. One difference in this event from other prominent competitions is the “Broomstacking” that takes place during “halftime” of the game. It is a display of camaraderie unique to the Strathcona Cup games.
Our guests will stay for a special dinner, some drinks and socializing. Once done they will make their way to Niagara Falls in the evening before they are back on the ice for more curling and sight seeing the next day..
