Pallister promises funding for world curling centre of excellence

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This article was published 29/03/2016 (3486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Former Manitoba curling champion Brian Pallister promised Tuesday that a Conservative government would pony up $700,000 to help recruit and market a long-discussed world curling centre of excellence in Winnipeg.

“We have some of the leaders in world curling in our province,” the Tory leader told a news conference overlooking the curling sheets at the Rossmere Golf and Country Club.

“Manitoba is the right place to be the world curling centre of excellence,” said Pallister. “We can teach the world, we can coach the world. We have world leaders in ice making.”

Where such a centre would be located and what it would look like were still a bit foggy Tuesday, but Pallister said he is not talking about building a training facility from scratch.

“We have facilities for curling training now,” he said. “We have bricks and mortar around the province. I’m talking about building a sharing model.”

Pallister said there are about 100 curling rinks in Manitoba.

He said curlers would flock to Manitoba to learn, and cited a Swedish junior rink that came to Portage la Prairie in 1980 to train, whose members subsequently “became amazing” through their training.

Pallister said in an interview after his speech that there are at least a dozen curling clubs here that have the curling sheets along with the necessary office and classroom space, or the ability to build them.

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However, he noted, there are fierce rivalries, and part of his job will be bringing everyone together.

“No government can do this alone,” Pallister said. “We have the raw materials — we need to pull this thing together.”