MCT's 21st Season

The Manitoba Curling Tour's fall portion of its 2011 season will begin later this month with a new team ranking system designed to create a greater level of competition between Manitoba's competitve teams and new level of support for the 24 MCT events which will be played in 15 curling clubs across the province.

The MCT's new ranking system will be directly involved in the allocation of three entries into the Safeway Championship in Dauphin and one entry into the Provincial Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Portage. In addition, the MCT's King Spud Classic in Carberry will award a berth to the Provincial Men's Curling Championship to the highest placing eligible team.

The new ranking system rates MCT bonspiels as Gold or Silver level events based on total prize money payout with $15,000 being the minimum payout to be declared a Gold event.

AM 1250 Sports Director Clayton Dreger asked MCT President Andy Stewart to talk about the new ranking sytem and how it will benefit teams.



Teams winning Gold events will earn 45 rankings points while Silver event championships are worth 30 points. Points for finalists, semi-finalists and quarter-finalists will be allocated in the same proportion. Non-qualifying teams will earn four points per win in Gold events and 2.5 points per win in Silver events.

A key in encouraging team participation in Manitoba bonspiels is that only a team's best four events wil be included in the ranking calculations.

The MCT rankings will be used as the basis of the invitation list for the MCT Championship which will be held in Morris from December 9th-12th. The top 16 on the Men's & Women's rankings will be invited to take part in the triple knock-out championships.

There are 19 Manitoba Curling Tour events this fall. These include seven Men's Gold events, four Men's Silver events, three Women's Gold events and four Women's Silver events. There is also one Open Silver Event in which Men's & Women's teams can compete and earn MCT ranking points.

The first event for the 2011 MCT fall season is the One Insurance Classic in Selkirk which will be held from September 29th-October 3rd.