The inaugural Pan Continental Curling Championships (PCCC) is set to get underway at Calgary’s Winsport Event Centre on Monday 31 October.
This new event serves as the world championship qualification route for all World Curling Member Associations, apart from those in the European Zone. The PCCC replaces the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships and the Americas Challenge.
As usual, the European nations will qualify for the world championships through the Le Gruyère AOP European Championships – staged in Oestersund, Sweden, this November.
The PCCC will feature 13 women’s teams, divided into an A-Division of nine teams and a B-Division of four teams, and 16 men’s teams, divided into an A-Division of eight teams and a B-division of eight teams.
In the women’s event, the top five teams will qualify for the LGT World Women’s Curling Championship 2023, being held in Sandviken, Sweden in March.
In the men’s event, there are five qualification places available for the BKT Tires & OK Tire World Men’s Curling Championship 2023 being staged in Ottawa.
As hosts of this event, Canada qualifies automatically for one of these five slots available from the PCCC, leaving the other A-Division teams to battle it out for four places.
Meanwhile, the bottom men’s team from the A-Division will be relegated to next season’s B-Division, to be replaced by the promotion of this season’s B-Division winners.
The ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are reflected in the fact that a special arrangement has been invoked to increase the size of the women’s A-Division from eight to nine teams for this year only.
As a result, the bottom two women’s teams will be relegated this year with only the B-Division winner getting promotion for next year, when the women’s A-Division will return to the intended eight teams.
In addition, travel-related difficulties have already caused the withdrawal of China’s teams from this event, with Australia men and New Zealand women replacing them in the A-Divisions.
Women’s event
A-Division: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, New Zealand and United States.
B-Division: Chinese Taipei, Kenya, Mexico and Nigeria.
Among these teams:
- Hosts Canada are represented by the current world bronze medallists, skipped by Kerri Einarson.
- Japan’s skip Fujisawa Satsuki led her team to Olympic silver last season, adding to her Olympic bronze of four years earlier.
- United States finished fifth in last season’s world championship, but are represented this time by a re-cast team.
- Kazakhstan skip Angelina Ebauyer leads a new team, after winning her nation’s first World Curling event medal last year—bronze in the Pacific-Asia Championship.
- This is a debut appearance on World Curling ice for Kenya and Nigeria women.
Men’s event
A-Division: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and United States.
B-Division: Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Nigeria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Among these teams:
- Hosts Canada are represented by the current Olympic bronze medallists and world silver medallists skipped by Brad Gushue—with one change in the line-up.
- Australia skip Dean Hewitt became his country’s first male curling Olympian when he played in last season’s Olympic mixed doubles event.
- Former world junior silver medallist and Youth Olympic games bronze medallist Korey Dropkin skips United States.
- Skip Marcelo Cabral De Mello has previously led Brazil teams in eight Americas Challenges.
- Chinese Taipei skip, Randolph Shen, makes his first appearance at this level, following eleven campaigns at the Pacific-Asia Championship.
- Guyana, skipped by Rayad Husain, came second in the 2018 Americas Challenge.
- India, skipped by P. N. Raju, are making their debut at this level.
A-Division schedule
Round-robin play starts on Monday 31 October and continues until Friday 4 November.
The women’s and men’s semi-finals will take place on Saturday 5 November, followed by the men’s bronze medal game later that day.
Sunday 6 November will see the men’s gold medal final staged in the morning, followed by the women’s bronze medal game and then the women’s gold medal final.
B-Division schedule
The men’s round-robin starts on Monday 31 October, while the women’s round-robin begins on Tuesday 1 November. Both will run until Friday 4 November.
Both the men’s and the women’s play-off will take place on Saturday 5 November, starting with the semi-finals in the morning, followed by the medal games in the evening.
Broadcast information can be found here.
Engage with the World Curling Federation in the lead up to the Pan Continental Curling Championships 2022 on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Weibo and by searching the hashtags #PCCC2022 #curling
