City of Thunder Bay has 'appetite' to bid for Scotties Tournament of Hearts

After another successful six-day Pinty's Grand Slam of Curling Tour Challenge, held in Thunder Bay back in November 2018, the city's curling community have set their eyes on another national championship event.

• Pinty's Grand Slam of Curling event kicks off in Thunder Bay

"Overall the three local curling clubs who came on board to form the host committee ... are very pleased that the event has generated $60,000 in profit that the curling clubs can now use for the development of junior curling, and for revenue to keep their doors open and to further promote curling in Thunder Bay," James Cameron, development officer for Tourism Thunder Bay told CBC News.

He said the total ticket sales for the event were over$167,000 and with "27 hours of broadcast from SportsNet," Cameron feels it helped put Thunder Bay on the map as a place to host "not only curling, but for championship events" as well.

"With that said, the local curling community is now looking at what the next big event will be," Cameron explained, "and there is an appetite to go after the ScottiesTournament of Hearts ... in 2021."

The last time Thunder Bay hosted the national women's curling championshipwas back in 1996, which means, if the northwestern Ontario city is awarded the bid to host in 2021, it would be the 25th anniversary of that event.

"Krista McCarvilleis still one of the top women curlers in northern Ontario and has a good chance to win northern Ontario over the next couple years if she continues playing," Cameron said, adding that if she were to play at the Fort William Gardens during the ScottiesTournament, "it would be a natural draw to fill 25 to 3000 seats in the arena."

'Confident' on bid for Scotty's

According to Cameron, the hosting fee for the Scotty's Tournament of Hearts is about $400,000.

"Thunder Bay has implementedthe accommodation tax ... with moniesbeing collected since September and it is hope that maybe some of the funds that were earmarked for tourism promotion and marketing could potentially go toward paying the hosting fee for this championship event," Cameron said.

The Scotties tournament is expected to bring about six to 10 million dollarsin revenue for the city as it is considered a major Canadian championship,according to Cameron.

"It's one of the highest profile events that Thunder Bay would have hosted in the past 25 years," he said, comparing it to the World Junior Baseball champions and"even the upcoming Special Olympics Canada Games."

He said while the $40,000 hosting fee is not due until June, a letter of intent needs to be sent to Curling Canada by the end of April and a pre-sale of tickets would then be held in the potential host citiesto determine the interest in the region.

"This is common practice," he said. "So what happens is that people will be asked to put down $25 or $50 with the intent to buy a full event package."

Cameron added that with the previous success of the Pinty's Grand Slam events, he's confidentthat Curling Canada "knows that Thunder Bay would be a great host."