HIGH ACHIEVERS: OVCA using its profit share from staging 2023 world men’s championships to advance curling

By Martin Cleary

Ottawa is familiar with producing outstanding major national and international sports championships and attracting the subsequent community support.

Over the years, the city has seen high-performance athletes play in the CFL’s Grey Cup, FIFA World Cup soccer matches and the International Skating Union’s world figure skating championships.

The local curling community also proudly stands in the circle of distinction, having presented the 2023 world men’s curling championship, the 2019 men’s and women’s Roar of the Rings Olympic Trials and the 2016 Tim Hortons Brier over the past eight years.

Every one of these championships, and many more like them, were deemed a true success for a multitude of reasons. And somewhere in their final reports, there’s the mention of a significant profit, which would be destined to develop future athletes.

It has been almost a year since the 2023 world men’s curling championship was played at the TD Place Arena and the rewards are now starting to take shape for the Ottawa curling community.

When the Ottawa Valley Curling Association, the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group and Ottawa Tourism created their budget to stage the 13-country world men’s championship, $50,000 was earmarked as a legacy fund based on ticket sales.

The 2023 world men’s curling championship, which saw Scotland’s Bruce Mouat defeat Canada’s Brad Gushue 9-3 in the gold-medal match, attracted a 10-day total of 75,960 enthusiastic spectators. The profits were shared by Curling Canada, the CurlON provincial association and the OVCA.

“I’m still not sure I can say the amount,” said OVCA president Paul Hennessey in a phone call on Friday. “Curling Canada gets the first rights to make funding announcements. In 2022-23, we budgeted $50,000 (for a legacy fund), but I think we comfortably passed that.”

The OVCA received its share of the profits towards the end of last year and created the World Men’s Legacy Fund.

Its first legacy support program hooked onto an existing program to help competitive curling teams. While the OVCA will financially assist teams at provincial, national and international championships, the World Men’s Legacy Fund money will be strictly for local rinks at all levels representing Ontario or Quebec at Canadian championships.

In the past, each team received a maximum $500 grant ($125 for each OVCA club member). But the World Men’s Legacy Fund doubled that amount to $1,000.

“It helps to defray travel and accommodation costs, which can eat up a lot of dollars,” Hennessey said. “It’s our way of helping them out as they take the OVCA banner to the national level.”

The first three Ottawa rinks to benefit from the bolstered legacy fund were teams that represented Ontario at the Canadian women’s and men’s U18 championships – Dominique Vivier of the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club and Ava Acres of the RCMP Curling Club in the women’s competition and Owen Nicholls of the Rideau Curling Club in men’s play. The two national championships were shared by the R.A. Curling Centre of Excellence and the Ottawa Hunt.

The Acres team finished with a 7-2 overall record and won the bronze medal, while Vivier had a perfect 6-0 round-robin mark before losing two playoff games. Nicholls was fourth in his pool at 3-3 and went 1-2 in playoff matches.

“When we play host to things like this, that’s always good entertainment and the top-notch curlers put on a show. We hear they appreciate (how it’s organized),” Hennessey added. “But we’re really proud of the long-term legacy going forward.”

In the future, the OVCA may also distribute legacy funds to three other programs – helping local clubs with capital projects, training coaches and ice technicians and assisting with the association’s Little Rocks (U12) league.

When the 2016 Brier was staged at TD Place Arena, the OVCA received funds from the sale of tickets and the 50-50 draw. Three years later, the association’s legacy money from the Olympic trials only came through ticket sales.

“From our records, some of the Brier monies initially helped fund learn-to-curl programs in the area, and the 50-50 funds were allocated to funding competitive teams and youth and senior leagues in the area,” Hennessey added in an email.

When the requests stopped for Brier and Roar of the Rings monies, the OVCA disbursed the remaining $156,000 as a windfall to the association’s 45 clubs. The OVCA gave each club $1,000 for each sheet of ice in its building.

The OVCA also gave each club $500 for advertising the association with an in-ice logo. Thirty-six clubs also received $680 each for their youth programs.