News Champions Cup

OSHAWA, Ont. — Brad Gushue had a pretty good feeling his team already had a berth lined up for the Champions Cup.

His St. John’s, N.L., team had already won four high-profile events on tour this season but are now guaranteed a spot to the season-ending Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tournament by winning the National on Sunday at the General Motors Centre.

The all-new Champions Cup — running April 26 to May 1, 2016, at the Sherwood Park Arena Sports Centre in Sherwood Park, Alta. — features all of the top winners on tour from Grand Slam events to the Brier and Scotties to the world juniors and more.

“We felt pretty good about our chances getting in with some of the World Curling Tour events, we’ve won some big ones earlier in the year, but now this solidifies our spot, which is really nice,” Gushue said Sunday following his win over Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers at the National. “It allows us to actually go ahead and book our flights now and make sure we don’t spend a fortune because it’s a long way from home.”

“It’s going to be a fun event,” he added. “The first time all the champions, all of the winners on tour. We’re glad we’re going to be part of it. These are always fun to win just because you beat the top 15 teams in the world. It’s a nice pat on the back for a team. We’re going to be going home pretty happy from this event.”

Team Gushue third Mark Nichols explained why it was great for them to have their spot in the bank.

“It’s exciting, a new event at the end of the year,” Nichols said. “You’ve got to win an event to get in there so everyone that gets invited is a champion and has won an event somewhere along the way in the year so it’s nice to have that out of the way going into the second-half of the season.”

Gushue joins Tour Challenge Tier 1 winner Kevin Koe of Calgary and Masters champion Mike McEwen of Winnipeg as men’s teams who have locked up spots.

The women’s side features Tour Challenger Tier 1 winner Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland and Masters champion Rachel Homan of Ottawa, who also capture the women’s National title on Sunday.

Soo-Hyuk Kim of South Korea and Satsuki Fujisawa of Japan have also earned berths by winning the Pacific-Asia Curling Championship men’s and women’s titles, respectively.

The Champions Cup will feature 15 men’s and 15 women’s teams in round-robin play with three pools of five team each.

Full event passes are now available for the Champions Cup, visit our tickets page for more details on how you can purchase your pass today!

Below is a list of the qualifying events for the Champions Cup. In the event a team wins more than one qualifying event (e.g. Team Homan won both the Masters and National), the winner of the next ranked World Curling Tour event based on strength of field will be invited to complete the 15-team lineup.