After holding open BC championships in 2022 as a result of COVID-19, Curl BC has resumed open qualifiers to produce teams for its 2023 Scotties BC Women’s Curling Championship, presented by Best Western, and its 2023 BC Men’s Curling Championship fields.

The qualifiers, which will run concurrently for both women and men, will take place at the Delta Thistle Curling Club, starting this Friday, December 9^th and run through Sunday, December 11^th.

Competing on the Women’s side are seven rinks: Kaila Buchy, Sheilla Cowan, Stephanie Jackson-Baier, Donna Mychaluk, Taylor Reese-Hansen, Kristen Ryan, and Sarah Wark.

The men’s side will see ten rinks take to the ice: Teams Zane Bartlett, Jim Cotter, Adam Fenton, Dean Joanisse, Matthew McCrady, Chris Medford, Jason Montgomery, Rob Nobert, Trevor Ritchie, and Denis Sutton.

While this weekend’s open qualifiers are the only route remaining to the 2023 BC Scotties and Men’s Championships, Presented by Best Western, there were other avenues BC Tops Women’s and Men’s team took to qualifying during the preceding weeks.

For example, last year’s men’s champions, Team Brent Pierce, receives an automatic Defending Champion berth (last year’s women champions, Team Mary Anne Arsenault, is not playing this time around).

Additional automatic berths were also allotted to Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) points leaders. For the men’s championship, those berths will go to:

#1 CTRS Berth – Team Jacques Gauthier

#2 CTRS Berth – Team Paul Cseke

#3 CTRS Berth – Team Sebastien Robillard

And for the women’s championship, the CTRS berths will be awarded to:

#1 CTRS Berth – Clancy Grandy

#2 CTRS Berth – Corryn Brown

Finally, championship berths were also awarded through the BC Curling Tour to both the eligible men’s and women’s winners at the Kamloops Crown of Curling in October, and Dawson Creek’s Mile Zero Cashpiel in November.

The men’s berth spiel winners were:

#1 BC Curling Tour Berth- Team Cameron de Jong

#2 BC Curling Tour Berth- Team Cody Tanaka

#3 BC Curling Tour Berth- Team Sean Geall

Team de Jong

And for the women:

#1 BC Curling Tour Berth- Diane Gushulak

#2 BC Curling Tour Berth- Shawna Jensen

Live score for the event in Delta along with the schedule and rosters can be found at: http://bot.curlbc.ca//web/

The lounge will be open for spectators to enjoy BC top teams vying for a berth in Chilliwack.

The 2023 Scotties BC Women’s Curling Championship, presented by Best Western, and the 2023 BC Men’s Curling Championship will take place from January 10th to 15th, 2023, at the Chilliwack Curling Club. Tickets are available at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2023-bc-scotties-presented-by-best-western-and-2023-bc-mens-tickets-429920964177