CURL: Calgary to host CW Curling Championships this weekend

Jan. 30, 2025 – The stage is set as curling teams from across the conference gear up to compete at the 2025 Canada West Curling Championships, hosted by the University of Calgary this Friday through Sunday.

The event takes place at the Calgary Curling Club, one of southern Alberta's premiere curling facilities. The University of Calgary Dinos will look to defend home ice against one of the largest fields in recent championship history, with eight schools represented in both men's and women's draws. Teams from Thompson Rivers University and UBC will join the fray this season, alongside competitors from Alberta, Regina, Lethbridge, Victoria and Brandon.

Live scoring links and scheduling information will be available on the championship homepage.

Please note the event will not be streamed on Canada West TV.

Alberta looks to defend double gold

The Alberta Golden Bears and Pandas stole the headlines at last year's championship, successfully defending home ice with a double gold performance.

On the women's side, the Pandas won their first Canada West crown since 2020 and went on to claim their third straight national title. They'll return three of the four student-athletes from their 2024 roster. Expect this year's team consisting of Serena Gray-Withers (skip), Catherine Clifford (third), Gracelyn Richards (second), and Zoe Cinnamon (lead) to enter the competition with confidence, having recently captured bronze at the 2025 FISU World University Games last week in Turin, Italy.

Last year's CW women's championship proved extremely competitive, with Regina, Victoria and Calgary all finishing the round robin tied for second with 3-2 records. Victoria, who won the conference championship in 2023, edged Calgary in the tiebreaker to qualify for nationals.

The host Dinos will look for a strong showing boosted by home crowd support, as second year skip Keelie Duncan and company pursue the school's first conference championship in women's curling since 1973.

Wildcards will be the new entries from UBC and Thompson Rivers. The WolfPack return to women's competition for the first time in 2016, back when teams qualified for nationals through the Western Canadian University Championships run by Curling Canada. The WolfPack won a U SPORTS silver medal that season.

In the men's event, the Golden Bears will look to continue their run of dominance, entering as five-time defending Canada West Champions. In fact, the Bears have won every conference event since it returned to Canada West in 2019. 

Led by skip Johnson Tao, Alberta returns the same four-person lineup from last year's championship.

While Alberta captured conference glory last season, it was the Regina Cougars who roared to a stunning national championship run. Skipped by Joshua Bryden, the Cougars were runners-up in last year's CW championship after compiling a 4-1 record. They went on to impress at U SPORTS nationals, qualifying for the playoff round before downing Alberta in the semis and Dalhousie in the final to capture the program's second national title.

Bryden's rink is also coming off a great experience at the 2025 FISU World University Games in Turin last week, as the group played well but ultimately fell to Switzerland in the bronze medal game.

For the host Dinos, skip Kenan Wipf will look to lead Calgary to a U SPORTS nationals berth for the second time in three seasons.

UBC will field a men's team for the first time since the 2022 Canada West championship, while Thompson Rivers returns to competition for the first time since 2013, a year in which they captured a national bronze medal.

U SPORTS Berths on the Line

The top two teams from both men’s and women’s competitions will qualify for the 2025 U SPORTS/Curling Canada University Championships, which will be hosted in Lethbridge, Alta. from Feb. 24 to 28.