Schedule announced for World Women's Curling Championship in Sydney

Organizers have released theschedule and announced which teams will be competing in a world curling tournament that's set to takeplace in Cape Breton this winter.

The BKTTire World Women's Curling Championship will behosted at Centre 200 in Sydney, N.S., fromMarch 16 to March 24.

On Thursday, Curling Canada announced thatteams from 12 countries as well as Canada will compete for the gold medal. Those teams include the defending world champions, Switzerland, the United States and Sweden.

The team that will wear the maple leaf at the tournament isstill to be decided, as the Scotties Tournament of Hearts determines which province will represent Team Canada.

Canada will openthe tournament on March 16 with two draws. The first will be against Sweden in the afternoon, before an evening draw against Denmark.

Paul MacDonald,vice-chair of the host committee for the event,saidteams fromSouth Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Turkey and Estonia will also take part.

"It's just amazing how fast this sport is growing,and we're seeing such a diverse group of teams and they're very competitive," he said.

MacDonald said single-draw tickets will have different pricing depending on who is on ice. The goal is to make the tournament affordableand to have good crowds for every draw.

Tickets for the round-robin start as low as $15, with playoff and semifinal games starting at $25.

He said the tournament is setting up to be very competitive.

"Now this is not just Canada being, you know, an automatic in the gold medal game. They're going to have to earn it and there's a lot of great teams out there," MacDonald said.

The tournament already has a full slate of volunteers, he said, and ticket sales were brisk over the holidays, particularly for the opening and championship weekends.