With play underway in Stonewall to determine this year’s Viterra Manitoba Men’s Curling Champions, CurlManitoba has announced that the 2025 event will be co-hosted by the Portage Curling Club and Portage Regional Recreation Authority at Stride Place in Portage.
The 32-team gathering of curlers from across Manitoba will take on special significance in 2025 as it is the 100th anniversary of the very first Manitoba championship played in 1925, and won by the legendary Howard Wood Sr.
Coincidentally, because of the one-year cancellation of the championship in 2021 due to Covid, the 2025 event will also be the actual 100th Manitoba Men’s Curling Championship.
We are delighted to be able to bring the championships back to Portage,” say host committee co-chairs Rob Gemmell and Dean Moxham. “Stride Place is a great curling-venue arena and an ideal size to host the Viterra Championship.”
“CurlManitoba is pleased to be able to confirm the venue and announce it at this time. This allows us to begin the preparations for a true celebration of the history of curling and of this championship,” says CurlManitoba Executive Director Craig Baker.
Portage has hosted the Manitoba Men’s Championship on three different occasions. The 2017 Viterra Championship was won there by Mike McEwen; the 2003 Safeway Championship by John Bubbs; and the 1999 Safeway Select by Jeff Stoughton.
The Manitoba Men’s championship was played in Winnipeg until 1968. That year, it was played in Brandon’s Wheat City Arena.
In all Brandon has been the host city nine times. Selkirk has hosted six times; Portage will join Dauphin, Neepawa and Virden as four time hosts; Morden and Steinbach have hosted twice; and Beausejour, Flin Flon, Thompson, Stonewall and Winkler have hosted once each.
Canada’s men’s curling championship, the Brier, was first played in 1927. In the two years after Manitoba’s championship was established, the Manitoba champions (Wood in 1925 and George Sherwood in 1926) were sponsored by Macdonald Tobacco on good-will visits to Eastern Canada to compete in events against the best curlers in the east. The sponsor and organizers recognized the merits of a national event and the Brier was born.
