Halifax to host 2025 Canadian Curling Trials; Liverpool gets Mixed Doubles Trials
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The Canadian Curling Trials are headed back to Halifax.
Curling Canada announced Wednesday that the 2025 Canadian Olympic Trials will take place Nov. 22-30, 2025, at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax.
Halifax hosted the Trials in 2005 when Team Brad Gushue and Team Shannon Kleibrink earned the right to represent Canada at the Winter Olympics with memorable wins.
Curling Canada also announced two other major events will be held in Nova Scotia ahead of the 2026 Olympics in Italy.
The Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials will be played Dec. 30, 2024-Jan. 4, 2025, at Queens Place Emera Centre in Liverpool, N.S.
Curling Canada said in the spring that the Mixed Doubles Trials will be moved to 14 months in advance of the Winter Olympics in order to give the winning team more time to prepare. Going forward, curlers can now compete in both mixed doubles and regular four-person curling at the Olympics if they qualify for both.
Finally, the Canadian Pre-Trials will take place at the Andrew H. McCain Arena in Wolfville, N.S. from Oct. 21-26, 2025. The winning men's and women's team will earn the final spots for the Canadian Olympic Trials in November of that year.
“These three events are among the most important of any Olympic quadrennial in Canada, and Canadian curling athletes focus intensely on them,” said Danny Lamoureux, interim CEO of Curling Canada. “Nova Scotia is home to a curling community and a provincial government that made it extremely apparent that these events were important to them and I know the province will do an outstanding job to make these events memorable for everyone.”
The Canadian Curling Trials will feature eight men's and eight women's teams competing in a round-robin format with the top three teams reaching the playoffs. The first-place team goes straight to the final while the second and third-place teams play in the semifinal. For the first time ever, the finals will feature a best-of-three series.
Check out the full qualifying process for the Olympic Trials, right HERE.
The winning teams will represent Canada in four-person curling at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy from Feb. 6-22, 2026.
Halifax also hosted the Brier in 2010, 2003 and 1995, as well as the 1992 Scotties Tournament of Hearts and the 2015 World Men’s Curling Championship.
Gushue and Jennifer Jones won the 2021 Canadian Curling Trials in Saskatoon. Gushue captured a bronze medal at the Olympics in Beijing while Jones missed the podium.
Canada hasn't won gold at the Olympics in four-person curling since 2014 when Brad Jacobs and Jones accomplished the feat in Sochi, Russia. However, John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes stood atop the podium at PyeongChang 2018 as the first mixed doubles Olympic gold medalists.
Rachel Homan and Morris were selected by Curling Canada to represent the nation in mixed doubles at the 2022 Olympics after the Trials were cancelled due to COVID-19. They missed the playoffs in Beijing.