A big opportunity is coming to Cape Breton. Tom Urbaniak provides details.

Scotties Tournament of Hearts is a major community development opportunity

Volunteer registration is now open for the 2019 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the Canadian women’s curling championship. It’s a chance for us all to give Cape Breton a major boost.

The multi-day event’s profile and scale cannot be overstated. The Scotties will reach more people than, for example, the 1987 Canada Winter Games, which were held in Cape Breton. And the Scotties will be many times larger than Sydney’s last Canadian curling championship, the junior men’s in 1955.

How can we take full advantage of this unique opportunity?

From February 16-24, there will be wall-to-wall, live national television coverage from Cape Breton. If we do our marketing and hospitality homework, those broadcasts and all the media reports will be peppered with Cape Breton content - our warmth, welcome and diversity, our creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, our personalities. The testimonials of the curlers, broadcasters and visitors will inspire a national audience.

This is a big deal. A 2014 University of Waterloo study by Luke Potwarka, Austin Willson and Simon Barrick found that about 710,000 Canadians curl at least occasionally every year. But many more watch curling. Other reports claim that more than seven million Canadians tune into TSN for at least a bit of the Scotties. The weekday draws typically attract more than half a million viewers. The finals can expect more than a million.

On the ground, the 16 competing teams will be joined by legions of assistants, fans, media and corporate sponsors. Most of them will be first-time visitors with no previous connections here.

Let’s turn them into our ambassadors.

The energetic, competent local host and bid committees are aware of the opportunities. But their efforts must be complemented by good public policy, good planning, and a grassroots movement.

Let’s reach out to newcomers to Cape Breton to invite them to join the volunteer pool. Working alongside fellow Cape Bretoners on a big project is the quickest way to integrate into the community. At Cape Breton University, we should especially encourage new international students to sign up as volunteers. Presently, many students lack interactions with the broader community.

Cultural sites, museums and other venues that hibernate in the winter should re-open for the Scotties. Downtown Sydney’s retail opening hours should be extended. As much as possible, winter festivals and parties should dovetail on the tournament.

Transit logistics and many visitor shuttles will have to be part of the mix, so that people can easily visit communities outside Sydney. Public artists, merchants, and street banners should reflect a Scotties theme. Municipal and First Nations politicians, as well as business and education leaders, have a role here as motivators and cheerleaders.

And between now and next February, let’s encourage more Cape Bretoners to become curlers or at least get acquainted with the sport.

I am not a great curler, but I am grateful to be part of the Sydney Curling Club. I curl one evening a week.

I appreciate the exercise and stress relief. But I am also absorbed into a welcoming environment of good humour and kindness, with people from all walks of life. I have never been chastised for my many missed shots!

The club has people of all age groups and all occupations, many levels of ability and persons who are living with disabilities. There are First Nations and non-Indigenous Cape Bretoners. There are short-term residents, too.

Even Canada’s top curlers are club curlers. At this year’s Scotties, local curlers were cheering for Christina Black (the third on Mary-Anne Arsenault’s Nova Scotia team), with whom many have curled. Cape Breton has recently produced leading national vision-impaired curlers, including the Louise Gillis rink.

When I am at the curling club, I sometimes think of the political science literature on “social capital.” Democratic sports like curling have the spin-off effect of building stronger communities and local economies because of the way they require coordination and leadership (on and off the ice) by teams of diverse people, young and old.

The 2019 Scotties will have a lasting effect here. The future of Cape Breton depends on grassroots successes like this, the product of our own collective initiative, not the fiats of far-away governments or industries.

Let the Tournament of Hearts give us confidence for other ambitious projects that we can accomplish together as Cape Bretoners.

“How can we take full advantage of this unique opportunity?”