Going for tourism gold in North Bay: Curling championship expected to draw thousands to Gateway city.

PositionNorth Bay

Thousands are expected to descend on North Bay--with millions more watching through their television screens--when the Ford World Women's Curling Championship comes to town March 17-25.

Thirteen women's teams from around the globe will compete at the city's Memorial Gardens arena for the world curling title during the nine-day event, including the Canadian champions, Team Jennifer Jones, which recently competed at the 2018 winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

It's undeniably a coup for the Northern Ontario city of 51,000, which has never before hosted a sports tourism event of this size, said Dave Bennett, vice-chair of special events at the North Bay Granite Club, which is co-hosting the event with the City of North Bay.

"There have only been two previous world curling championships in the whole province of Ontario before--one in Hamilton and one in Toronto," Bennett said. "So, this is the largest curling event, certainly in Northern Ontario, and of course for the City of North Bay, that's ever been held."

Between 80,000 and 90,000 people--athletes, coaches, dignitaries, fans, volunteers, media --are expected in the city, nearly doubling its population. And all those people will need accommodations, food, transportation, and entertainment, injecting millions of dollars into the economy.

"I would think that, quite realistically, we're looking at an infusion to the economy of, conservatively, $12 million," Bennett said. That's an average of $1.3 million per day over the course of the nine-day event.

Getting to this point has been a long process. It dates back to 2013, when the Granite Club hosted the Canadian National Mixed Curling Championship.

At that time, refurbishment work on Memorial Gardens was still in progress, but representatives from Curling Canada were impressed by the venue, suggesting it would be ideal for hosting a bigger event.

Fast forward three years, and that suggestion wasn't forgotten. Curling Canada asked the club to bid on the women's championship, the City of North Bay came on as a partner, and the bid was successful.

But winning the bid was the easy part. The logistics behind putting on an event of this size are challenging. First, Bennett said, organizers had to work out an agreement with the city's Ontario Hockey League team, the North Bay Battalion, which uses Memorial Gardens as its home ice.

Next, they had to recruit close to 400 volunteers to help coordinate and run the event. Bennett said they met that...

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