CALGARY, September 19, 2000S The 2002 Nokia Brier will be staged in Calgary at the Pengrowth Saddledome, March 9-17, it was announced today by the Canadian Curling Association (CCA).

It will be the second Canadian Men’s Curling Championship sponsored by Nokia, the world’s largest supplier of mobile telephones. The 2001 Nokia Brier takes place in Ottawa next March.

It will mark the fifth time that Calgary has hosted the Brier and the 10th time it’s been held in the province. The last time Calgary staged the championship was in 1997 at the Saddledome, where a then-record 223,322 fans witnessed a tremendously exciting week of curling, highlighted by Alberta’s Kevin Martin winning the Brier final over Manitoba’s Vic Peters.

That attendance record was subsequently broken by Edmonton in 1999 (242,887) then again in Saskatoon last March (248,793).

Calgary also hosted the Brier in 1948, 1961 and 1980, while Alberta has staged the championship nine times, four in Calgary and Edmonton (1954, 1973, 1987, 1999) and once in Red Deer (1994).

Since the Brier began in 1927 in Toronto, it has been played in 31 cities across Canada, from Victoria to St. John’s. Manitoba has won a record 26 Briers, while Alberta is next with 18. New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Yukon/Northwest Territories have yet to win.

Since 1980, when the first Labatt Brier was held in Calgary and a playoff format was introduced, 14 of 21 Brier champions have also gone on to win the men’s world curling championship. The latest was British Columbia’s Greg McAulay, who captured the Brier in Saskatoon and the 2000 Ford Worlds in Glasgow, Scotland.

Last March, at the Brier in Saskatoon, it was announced that Nokia would be taking over title sponsorship from Labatt, which now assumes a supplier role. It’s a four-year agreement and expands the curling involvement of the communications company, which also sponsored the 1997 Olympic Curling Trials in Brandon. As well, Nokia sponsors the provincial men’s championships (Nokia Cups) in Ontario, Northern Ontario and Quebec.

The 2001 Nokia Brier will be played at the Ottawa Civic Centre, March 3-11. The winning team will be presented with a refurbished Brier Tankard, the original solid silver trophy created for the first Macdonald Brier in 1927, which will now replace the retired Labatt Brier Tankard.

For further information:

Warren Hansen
Manager of Event Operations and Media,
Canadian Curling Association
604-266-1106
e-mail: wrhansen@intergate.ca