City commits funds for three major events
By Dan Jensen

The City of Camrose name and logo will be getting good exposure during this winter's women's provincial curling championship at Edgeworth Centre.

Camrose City council agreed has agreed to have the City of Camrose sponsor the January 26 to 30 event (also known as the Alberta Scotties) to the tune of $15,000.

Council has also agreed to provide $25,000 in sponsorship for the Royal Bank Cup that will be held from April 30 to May 8, 2011, and $15,000 in sponsorship for the Boston Pizza Men's Provincial Curling Championships, that will be held February 6 to 10, 2012.

Curling events

The Alberta Scotties and Boston Pizza Cup will be hosted by the Rose City Curling Club.

"We will be staging these events with an emphasis on our theme, which is a celebration of a century of curling for the Camrose Curling Club," said Rose City Curling Club championship events committee Bob Seney, in a letter to Mayor Mastel last spring. "We are making a number of plans to paint a picture of what the Curling Club has meant to this community over the past century, and to provide this to the community in a variety of ways."

The Alberta Scotties has never been held in arena settings twice before but never in a facility as large as Edgeworth Centre.

"We have a state of the art facility here," said Seney at council's August 16 meeting.

"Everyone has been impressed with it."

The Cheryl Bernard team, which represented Canada at the Olympics in Vancouver last February, has already qualified for the Alberta Scotties, as has the Valerie Sweeting team, which represented Alberta at the Canadian women's championships.

The Boston Pizza Championship is likely to feature the Kevin Martin team, which won the gold medal at the Vancouver Olympics, and the Kevin Koe team, which won the 2010 Tim Horton's Brier.

The provincial men's and women's championships are expected to be another feather in the cap for the Rose City Curling Club, which hosted the Continental Cup of Curling in minus 40°C temperatures in December, 2009.

"We are hoping to break even with the women's championship and make money on the men's," said Seney.

"The cold weather had an impact on the attendance at the Continental Cup."

The Rose City Curling Club believes the Edgeworth Centre is ripe for larger events like the world curling championships.

"The world championships are usually held in smaller communities," said Seney.

Tickets for the Alberta Scotties will go on sale the third or fourth week of October.

Royal Bank Cup

The Royal Bank Cup will showcase the City of Camrose, the Edgeworth Centre and the Camrose Kodiaks' hockey club to a live audience of up to 3,000 fans and via the national televising of the final game on May 8 by TSN.

"A tournament of this magnitude will raise the profile of the community and generate significant economic spinoff," said RBC committee co-chair Kevin Gurr in a presentation to council. 

"We are expecting visitors from across the country."

The RBC anticipates total attendance at the event of between 35,000 and 40,000. Tickets for afternoon games will be donated to the local school boards.

RBC committee member Gary Gibeault told council the RBC Cup will be better than the World Junior Championships that were held in 2009.

"It's going to be all Canadian hockey but it will be the best (Junior A) hockey teams from across the country," he said.

The Camrose Sport and Development Society, host of the Royal Bank Cup, plans to install a big screen in the arena which it will fund with money generated from the tournament. Proceeds from other CDSC events have helped with the arena's air conditioning system, and ticketing system, and have been used to support charitable causes such as Red Cross relief in Haiti.

"We are getting final quotes on a jumbo screen now," said Gurr.

Councillor John Howard commended the CDSC and the Royal Bank Cup committee on the hard work it has done in bringing the hockey event to Camrose.

"The Edgeworth Centre was built with this kind of event in mind," he said.

"It can't be anything but good for the City of Camrose and our image."

Locally organized

Camrose Community Services manager Paul Nielsen told council the events requesting sponsorship are more independent from the government sporting bodies and are truly locally organized.

"The City of Camrose does have a role to play in support of events of this nature," he said in a written report. "Current and future budgets do and can have allocations set aside to fund the level of sponsorship approved by council."

Nielsen stated the events will generate revenue far exceeding what they cost.

"With the provincial curling championships we will generate $30,000 from space rental alone, which is more than what we typically make during that time period. The Royal Bank Cup will do better than that because it will be held in May, during a time we have no revenues."