Terry Morris has been an event manager for Curling Canada since 2004.
He says the 2018 Ford World Women’s Curling Championship here in North Bay is the biggest event he has been involved with.
He was in Grande Prairie, Alberta when attendance totals exceeded 60,000.
“It was certainly over our target that we were estimating here,” said Morris.
“We always thought it would draw well here because they have never had an event and it is a pretty good curling community.”
Morris believes the things that happened before the event are what made it successful.
“The tickets were almost sold out before the event started,” noted Morris.
“The community involvement from the sponsorship right down to the volunteers getting behind it and things like that is really what put it over the top.”
See related: Ford World Women's Curling Championships in photos
A volunteer base of 400 strong also made the event run like a well-oiled machine. Led by organizers Dave Bennett, Mark Brown and Rick Miller, the guys and girls in blue jackets hit celebrity status with the work they did to make this event happen.
“I have been stopped by people on the street, people in stores who I didn’t know and walked up to me and shook my hand and said, ‘thank you,’ that really says it all,” said Vice Chair Rick Miller.
Of course, the curlers never stopped talking about the North Bay fans. Canadian Gold Medal Skip Jennifer Jones was not surprised to find out North Bay blew away the Canadian hosted 2018 Ford World Women’s Curling Championship attendance numbers.
“I told you it was almost sold out for a practice, a pre-event practice never mind our 9 a.m. games,” said Jones.
“I just cannot thank North Bay enough for what they did for us.”
The success is also bringing North Bay in the conversation for future curling events and there is no question other organizations in North Bay and beyond are taking notice too. Mayor Al McDonald certainly hopes so.
“This is a classic example of sports tourism or event tourism,” noted McDonald.
“This is the biggest one we have hosted but sports tourism has the ability to fill our hotels and our restaurants. It is not just curling, it is dance, it could be theatre, robotics so we encourage our local champions if they are heads of associations or sports groups to bring your event to our community and this world curling championship shows our community will respond.”
