THUNDER BAY – After the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in no fans in the stands at the 2022 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Thunder Bay, the organizing committee is eager to show what Fort William Gardens will be like with a packed house next February.
“It’s been a six-year process with the pandemic and everything that has happened,” local organizing committee vice chair Rick Lang said.
“We’re really excited to have people in the stands here and this building is going to be transformed into one exciting place.”
A major step in the process of hosting the 2025 Scotties, which run from Feb. 14-23, happened on Thursday when Curling Canada received a cheque of $400,000 that secured the hosting fee for the event.
Marcy Hrechkosy, who is an event manager for Curling Canada, was also in town for a site visit to help map out things for the tournament and to meet with the host committee and the director of volunteers.
Like Lang, Hrechkosy is eager to have a normal Scotties take place in Thunder Bay.
“When we knew that we were coming back here, I asked to be assigned to this event as I want to do it the right way,” Hrechkosy said.
“When we had the 500 volunteers in the stands for the playoffs back in 2022, they blew the roof off of the building. With the fans here in 2025, we’ll knock it out of the park.”
Although the 2022 Scotties wasn’t a normal one, Curling Canada and the local organizing committee gained a lot of valuable information that will help them this time around.
“It was sort of like being able to do a dry run for the event,” Hrechkosy said. “This is an older building, so that presented some challenges, but we were able to work those kinks out and that has allowed us to make a better plan for the full fan experience.”
“This is the right type of building and facility for an event like this, so we hope that we can sell it out,” Lang added. “There are some limitations though that comes with the age of the building and with it being on national TV, so we’ve changed a lot of our ideas that we originally had to help make this a better-run event.”
Tickets for the event have been on sale since February for full-tournament and weekend packages.
With single draw tickets beginning on Oct. 24, Lang said that 60 per cent of tickets have been sold and that the championship weekend is nearly sold out.
“There’s a lot of curling that’s going to be going on during the week so we hope that we can draw in a lot of people, including those who are watching curling for the first time,” Lang said.
On the volunteer front, around 100 people are needed for various roles, such as merchandise and 50/50 sales.
The deadline to register as a volunteer is at the end of November. Forms can be filled out on Curling Canada’s website.
