USA champs Peterson, Shuster qualify for Champions Cup

UPDATE: Sportsnet and the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling have cancelled the 2020 Humpty’s Champions Cup.

CHENEY, Wash. — Tabitha Peterson and John Shuster are the latest to punch their tickets to the Humpty’s Champions Cup.

Peterson and Shuster qualified following their gold-medal victories Saturday in the USA Curling National Championships at Eastern Washington University’s Recreation Center.

The Humpty’s Champions Cup is the season-ending Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event taking place April 29 to May 3 at the Olds Sportsplex in Olds, Alta.

“I don’t think we’ve played in that one before or at least I haven’t,” said Peterson, who moved up from third to interim skip with Nina Roth away on maternity leave. “We’re looking forward to that. We love Slams. It’ll be fun.”

The team of Peterson, third Becca Hamilton, second Tara Peterson and lead Aileen Geving sustained just one loss during round-robin play falling 8-7 to Jamie Sinclair’s crew in an extra-end no less. They avenged the defeat to Sinclair with a 9-4 win in the Page 1-2 playoff game and took the rubber match 7-5 for the championship.

Shuster, third Chris Plys, second Matt Hamilton and lead John Landsteiner posted a perfect 11-0 record including an 8-6 victory over Rich Ruohonen’s club in the men’s final.

“It’s good because when you see our world ranking get down as where it was, it’s really, really, really hard to get into the top 15 and get into Slams,” Shuster said. “We’re always excited to go play at those events where you’re playing against the top 15, 12, whatever it is in the world. It’ll be good to be back after we played our last Slam this year, we qualified and played very well but we were like, ‘Well, we might not see you guys for another year.’ A little sooner than expected.”

The Humpty’s Champions Cup features 12 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams who have won high-profile tournaments in order to qualify. Only three events remain in both divisions to complete the field: world junior championships, Canadian championships (Tim Hortons Brier/Scotties Tournament of Hearts) and world championships.

Full-event and weekend passes are now available, visit thegrandslamofcurling.com/tickets for more information.

Broadcast coverage will be available on Sportsnet with online streaming at Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and Yare (international).

2020 Humpty’s Champions Cup field

Men’s Division	Women’s Division
2019 Players’ Championship Brendan Bottcher	2019 Players’ Championship Kerri Einarson
2018-19 Pinty’s Cup Kevin Koe*	2019 Humpty’s Champions Cup Silvana Tirinzoni
2019 Masters Matt Dunstone	2019 Masters Tracy Fleury
2019 KIOTI Tractor Tour Challenge (Tier 1) Brad Jacobs	2019 KIOTI Tractor Tour Challenge (Tier 1) Anna Hasselborg
European Championships Niklas Edin	Pacific-Asia Championships Yu Han
Pacific-Asia Championships Chang-Min Kim	Shorty Jenkins Classic Jennifer Jones**
Canada Cup John Epping**	Canada Cup Rachel Homan**
Perth Masters Bruce Mouat**	Canad Inns Women’s Classic Elena Stern**
USA Curling National Championships John Shuster	USA Curling National Championships Tabitha Peterson
World Junior Championships TBD	World Junior Championships TBD
Tim Hortons Brier TBD	Scotties Tournament of Hearts TBD
World Championship TBD	World Championship TBD