Strathcona Cup Tour 2023

Strathcona Cup Tour is the oldest International Curling event in the world with its origins going back to 1902. At that time, 25 male curlers from Scotland accepted an invitation to tour by playing matches at various locales in Canada and the United States. Due to the success of this initial tour, a reciprocal invitation was extended by Royal Caledonian Club to Canada in 1908, to send a team to Scotland to compete. 37 players representing Canada came from Halifax to the Yukon and in 1909, Lord Strathcona (Sir Donald Smith, of ‘Last Spike’ of Canadian Pacific Railway – 1885 fame) commissioned the Strathcona Cup – a large silver trophy, to be awarded to the winning country of the 1909 Tour.

This magnificent trophy has multiple outdoor curling scenes from both countries etched into it, along with famous Scottish castles. The long-standing tradition of curlers competing on Tour on an alternating host country basis at intervals of every five to six years (except for the War years) has continued ever since.

This now almost month-long tournament will be played across multiple curling clubs in Canada in January 2023 with over 300 games scheduled between 15 Scottish teams and various club teams. A unique feature of the Tour is the total score of ALL games played over the entire Tour, are summed, so that total points scored will determine which country can claim victory of the Strathcona Cup for that Tour. The current number of victories of the Cup show a narrow 13-10 lead held by Canada, after 120 years of competition.

The 2023 Tour will be comprised of three separate sections in Canada – West, Central & East, with five Scottish teams competing in each section. West Tour teams will commence in Vancouver and work their way East, playing games through British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba ending in Ottawa.

Calgary Curling Club, which has hosted teams from Scotland four times since 1983, will again host the West Tour teams on the afternoon of January 24 with four games scheduled and will also be hosting a formal Robbie Burns Dinner at the Club on following evening – January 25^th.