City places bid to host 2028 Brier

Only seven years after last hosting the country’s top men’s curling tournament, the City of Brandon has made a bid to bring the Brier back in 2028.

The host for the tournament, which will be held from Feb. 25 to March 5, will be announced by Curling Canada in the fall.

“I like to think that we’ve put in the best bid we possibly can, and that we stand a very good chance,” said Jennifer Watson, executive director of Brandon First, a non-profit organization that promotes Brandon as a host city for events.

Bidding for the popular 18-team event closed at the end of May, and the winning city is expected to be notified confidentially by Sept. 30.

A Curling Canada spokesperson said Thursday that the bidding process is confidential and he can’t share how many or which other cities may have also placed bids.

Brandon previously hosted the event in 1963, 1982 and 2019.

The 2019 Brier drew about 75,000 spectators, with visitors spending an estimated $2.8 million in the city during the week-and-a-half-long event.

“Brandon has a history of putting on incredible events, including the Brier in the curling world,” Watson said.

“We knock it out of the park every time. Brandon puts on an exceptional event hosting experience for all events when they come, but particularly those flagship events. The Keystone Centre is second to none.”

Curling Canada documents show the tournament comes with an $800,000 hosting fee and would have a projected $10- to $20-million economic impact.

Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said the hosting fee would be split 50-50 between the city and the province.

Brandon has also hosted several other major curling events in the past, including the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 1993 and 2002, the Women’s World Championships in 1995 and the Canadian Olympic Trials in 1997.

Watson said she thinks the city stands a good chance at winning the bid for the 2028 Montana’s Brier, but that it isn’t a guarantee.

The city also made an unsuccessful bid to host the 2025 Olympic Trials. Watson said in that instance, it just might not have been the right time for Brandon.

Fawcett said Curling Canada called him after the trials were awarded to Halifax, with the sporting organization expressing how much they like coming to the western Manitoba city.

“Anytime Brandon puts in a bid for a Curling Canada event, it will get considered,” Fawcett said Thursday. “I’m always confident when we put one in.”

He said curling “fits wonderfully” in the Keystone Centre, and that Manitoba is a great place for the sport, which helps Brandon’s chances.

Economic spinoffs, promotion of the city, the atmosphere of the event and residents having a larger sense of civic pride are the main pluses if the city hosts the tournament, Fawcett said.

“All the national attention for one week in the sporting world comes onto the city, and there’s just a lot of activity that goes around that,” he said.

It is possible that Curling Canada will decide that Brandon hosted the event too recently, he said, “but we know they like coming to Brandon because it’s easy to operate it out of here and our community gets behind it, and they really enjoy that, too.”

Watson said that following the COVID-19 pandemic, this Brier proposal is “the first real chance we’ve had to put in a solid bid since the world sort of fell apart.”

She said the main draws for the city hosting the tournament are the economic impact, with tourists spending money on goods and services, and the name recognition. As for Brandon’s name being broadcast on national television, she said: “You can’t put a price tag on that.”

Watson said the city has also submitted bids to host the 2027 Telus Cup, a national under-18 club hockey championship, and the 2027 Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association soccer championships. Results of those bids are expected by the end of fall.

“We’re hoping to have some big announcements across the board, so we’ll see what happens. The waiting part is the hardest.”

» alambert@brandonsun.com