It’s my Parting Shot to try and unconvalute, if there is such a word, the Curling Canada process for determining our country’s method of determining who will be our represenatives at the Beijing Winter Olympics in the traditional four-person team game…..

As of this moment, four women’s quartets and five men’s foursomes have already qualified for the Tim Horton’s Curling Trials, to be held November 20th through 28th at SaskTel Centre. When the event starts, there will be nine teams in each field. Those that have already qualified, did so by either winning the Scotties or the Tim Horton’s Brier or the Canada Cup or were ranked in the top three in the Canadian Team Ranking System for the 2019-20 season. In addition, your team must have at least three of four members still on it from how you qualified!

With me so far? Good, let’s continue!

There’s two events this week, starting tomorrow, in Ottawa. One is the Canadian Curling Trials Direct-Entry Event in which five teams from each gender division will compete for three women’s berths and two men’s spots directly into Saskatoon…hence the name! Among those teams are Saskatchewan entries skipped by Colton Flasch of Saskatoon and Matt Dunstone of Regina.

The second event starting tomorrow is the Canadian Curling Pre-Trials Direct-Entry Event, which is where it gets a little more goofy. Eight teams in each gender division will play a modified triple-knockout to determine two teams each that will qualify to play in the Pre-Trials in November in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Those two teams will join a few others at the Pre-Trials Event where two teams from each gender division will survive and qualify for the Tim Horton’s Olympic Trials in Saskatoon.

Maybe the most important thing to understand is that whichever women’s and men’s team is successful in the Saskatoon bonspiel is the one that will wear the Maple Leaf in Beijing! That’s as simple as I can make it, hopefully it’s been explained for you!

That’s my Parting Shot, I’m Les Lazaruk…