The Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling Series starts tonight at Memorial Gardens with the Masters.

Event chair Mark Brown says there is one draw this evening, then four draws a day tomorrow through Friday.

That will be followed by the playoffs on the weekend.

Brown says 15 of the top men’s and women’s teams from around the world are taking part, but one rink may be attracting a fair share of the attention.

“Any match that Brad Jacobs is in is going to be very exciting for us. He’s from the Sault and people are looking forward to the match between Jacobs and Kevin Koe,” he says.

That will be Thursday night at eight.

The featured women’s match is expected to be Jennifer Jones versus Anna Hasselborg in a rematch of the final of the World Women’s event when it was held here last year.

They go head to head Friday night at 7:30 pm.

Brown says they are some differences between this tournament and the World Women’s event.

“There are only eight end games compared to 10 at the world’s and four draws a day instead of three at the world’s,” he says.

Other big names include Brad Gushue, Glenn Howard, Mike McEwen, Chelsea Carey, Tracy Fleury, Rachel Homan and Kerri Einarson.

Rounding out the field for the women are Theresa Cannon, Satsuki Fujisawa, Eve Muirhead, Kelsey Rocque, Team Scheidegger, Robyn Silvernagle, Elena Stern, Sayaka Yoshimura and Silvana Tirinzoni.

Other men’s teams include Brendan Bottcher, Peter de Cruz, Matt Dunstone, Niklas Edin, John Epping, Scott McDonald, Bruce Mouat, Ross Paterson, Yannick Schwaller and John Schuster.

CLICK HERE for the draw schedule

 

(Photo courtesy The City of North Bay on Facebook)

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