The City of Greater Sudbury is poised to contribute $100,000 via in-kind services toward three Curling Canada events the city is hosting in March 2022.
The city’s finance and administration committee made the unanimous decision during Tuesday night’s meeting. While it still needs to be ratified by city council at a future meeting, both groups are composed of the same slate of elected officials, so it’s expected to pass.
This support, toward reduced ice rental costs, is in addition to the $40,000 the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation has agreed to contribute toward marketing and hospitality expenses.
This support proves “the city is open for business and ready for sports tourism,” economic development director Meredith Armstrong told the committee.
“We know that sporting events are going to be some of the first events to come back to the tourism industry as part of COVID recovery, and coming in March 2022 is really good timing for Greater Sudbury to build its hosting resume and put us in a competitive position for attracting more events like this.”
The three national events have been a long time coming, and originally stemmed from efforts by the municipality and the Idylwylde Golf & Country Club a few years ago to bid on the 2020 U-18 National Curling Championships. Although they were successful in this effort, the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As an alternative, the city is now hosting U-Sport/CCAA, U-15 and Canadian Mixed Doubles national curling events consecutively from March 15 to 27.
The events will be held at the Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex and are expected to bring in 352 players and coaches and 2,400 spectators, including 950 non-locals. An estimated 2,384 hotel room nights are expected to be booked throughout the events, contributing toward a total economic impact of $1.3 million in local spending.
National attention will be awarded to Greater Sudbury during the nationally televised Canadian Mixed Doubles event, which will feature both local advertisements and a vignette about the city during the broadcast itself.
“We do believe that the subsidizing of about $100,000 from the city as an in-kind does show a pretty significant return on investment for the community,” Armstrong said. “This is something that we want to happen often with out-of-town national and provincial and regional events coming to Sudbury and using our facilities like this.”
The host committee made up of three local curling clubs, including Curl Sudbury, Copper Cliff Curling Club and Coniston Curling Club, have agreed to take on any deficits that might occur, though Armstrong said she’s optimistic the event proves fruitful.
“Curling Canada is an organization that is deeply committed to the success of this event and to the success of curling, the curling culture, the curling sport,” she said, adding that they have a lot of experience in hosting events such as these.
“When they are developing the agreement with the clubs they are putting in measures to ensure the success of the events and things like legacy funding for the clubs so that they can continue to attract youth and attract people to try the sport, because that’s the ultimate goal of this effort.”
The only downside to the events, Armstrong said, is that local user groups will be displaced during a peak time arenas are in use, however she’s confident those who would typically use Countryside will find alternative accommodations.
“I’m supportive of this happening, I think we need the tourism and the economic development in our community and this is … another way to showcase it,” Ward 1 Coun. Mark Signoretti said during Tuesday’s meeting.
Hopefully people get out during the month of March to support these events, Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc said.
“We want to make sure that this is 150 per cent successful, and to our businesses throughout the city, this is a great opportunity.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
