Grow the Game campaign builds on Olympic buzz to expand curling across Canada

From high-stakes games to memorable moments, curling emerged as one of the most talked-about sports at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. With three medals for Canada – and a surge of international attention – interest in curling grew rapidly across the country.

Its popularity also increased thanks to Curling Canada’s Grow the Game campaign, which encouraged curling associations, curling clubs and individuals across the country to capitalize on Olympic momentum by making a pledge to expand the sport and introduce new people to the game.

Canadians across the country committed to growing the game by hosting Olympic watch parties, organizing Try Curling and Learn to Curl programs, offering inclusive and diverse experiences, and telling friends about the sport they love. This was in addition to country-wide FanFests and curling activations that introduced thousands more to curling.

Bobby Ray, Curling Canada’s Director of Club Development and Member Services, says the incredible efforts from the curling community made Grow the Game a success, and the increased Olympics buzz boosted it even further.

“The goal of the campaign was not to create awareness about the sport of curling — that is the role of the Olympic and Paralympic Games — which outperformed expectations in terms of exposure and introducing curling to more prospective participants in Canada,” says Ray.

While the Olympics brought more exposure to the sport, it was up to the curling clubs to act and capitalize on that momentum.

“Awareness without action is futile. When it comes to growing the game, clubs have opportunities to align awareness with engagement in the sport at a local level. Curling Canada was thrilled to see so many clubs across the country get involved and do their part by opening their doors, inviting people in, and offering programs that were strategically timed to benefit from the influences of the Winter Games.”

Curling boost in British Columbia

One club that was actively involved in the Grow the Game campaign was The Vancouver Curling Club, which saw huge success with a special post-Olympics Spring Learn to Curl program. 

“The Olympics always has its usual burst growth impact, but through a focused strategy, we’ve definitely seen a higher than usual increase in new participation,” says Patrick Prade, Executive Director of the Vancouver Curling Club Association (VCCA).

The Vancouver Curling Club, the largest club in Canada with around 2,000 members, typically offers four quarterly Learn to Curl sessions across the season. The club added an additional five-week session in April/May that has around 100 participants, about the same as they had over an entire year in previous seasons.

“We have about 120 people in Learn to Curl each year. We have 100 people in April,” says Prade, who adds it’s “without a doubt” due to the well-timed community outreach efforts in parallel to the Olympics and Paralympics.

This season, VCCA partnered with 11 other curling clubs across the Lower Mainland to promote Try Curling through a new website, TryCurling.Today,  that provides a list of clubs in the region and information on how to sign up for one-hour Try Curling sessions, Learn to Curl programs, or event rentals. With a minimal cost to each club, the website had 900 views and 350 click-throughs to individual clubs’ pages. Prade says they are hoping to expand the campaign this year, putting more advertising dollars behind it and hiring a specialist to manage it.

The one-hour Try Curling was created four years ago to leverage the 2022 Olympics and saw 800 participants at VCCA that season. This year, there have been over 1,800, including 100 on Curling Day in Canada alone on Jan. 31 at Vancouver Curling Club, which includes both the Hillcrest Centre and Marpole Curling Club, a partnership that grew out of high demand for the sport.

Prade says The Vancouver Curling Club plans to continue hosting special campaigns tied to the Olympics, particularly because the eight-sheet rink inside Hillcrest Centre has its own Olympic history.

“This was an Olympic building from the 2010 Olympics … you can hear the pride in our curlers’ voices when they speak about that legacy.”

Fan events bring curling to more Canadians

In addition to the initiatives launched by curling clubs across the country, events were held across Canada to introduce even more people to the sport.

Curling Canada, in partnership with provincial and regional curling associations, participated in four Canadian Olympic Committee Team Canada FanFests in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal during the Olympic Games. The free events included viewings, athlete appearances and demonstrations.

In Calgary, FanFest also included an on-ice experience for participants at Winsport Event Centre. Along with members of the general public, about 25 young people from the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society and another 25 from the Centre for Newcomers took part. Many of the youth, who were on average nine years old, had never stepped foot on manufactured ice before.

“It was an amazing experience to watch their joy as they experienced this for the first time,” says Britney Andersen, Director of Operations with Curling Alberta.

Some of the newcomers had only been in Canada for a few weeks prior to the event. As many participants spoke little to no English, translators were on hand to make sure they felt comfortable and were able to take part.

“Curling is a very open and welcoming sport, so inviting people of all demographics is extremely rewarding to both those new to curling (and/or Canada), and to those doing the welcoming,” says Andersen.

“It is also a fairly easy sport to pick up, you do not need a lot of English or to be confident speaking in order to engage. The programming that we offered was extremely basic and we felt everyone could feel comfortable jumping in and trying it.”

Following FanFest, newcomer youth who had participated in the event were invited to participate in a one-hour Try Curling session, with a six-week Ready to Rock program available for those looking to continue on after that as part of the Bell Starting Line initiative. Open to both youth and adults, the program will feature two sessions in April with an additional four sessions in September. Currently, 19 newcomers from the Bell Starting Line program are registered, as well as 18 members from the public who have either taken part in Try Curling or other events such as FanFest. Remaining spots were opened up to members of the public, many who had participated in one of the four Try Curling sessions.

Andersen says they plan to reach out to the remaining participants from FanFest this fall to see if they’d be interested in continuing to curl, as well as work with settlement organisations to grow their current partnerships and invite more newcomers to curl in the future.

As well as FanFest, Curling Canada also partnered with the Canadian Olympic Committee and Cadillac Fairview to offer iceless curling activations in nine major Canadian shopping centres across the country through the CF Play Makers Campaign from Feb. 6 – 22.

Nearly 65,000 people experienced curling as a result of taking part in the activations, with many more spectators on hand.

“To put a curling rock in the hands of more than 60,000 Canadians is an incredible feat and we expect this will lead to many of them continuing their curling journey this fall,” says Ray.

Building on Olympic momentum

The success of the Grow the Game campaign demonstrated a strong interest in curling across the country, with an opportunity for further growth.

Ray says curling clubs don’t have to wait four years for the next Olympics and Paralympics to start new initiatives as high-profile events are happening every year such as the Montana’s Brier, Scotties Tournament of Hearts and Curling Day in Canada.

“Any event with broad public exposure presents an opportunity to promote curling participation and invite new audiences into local clubs,” says Ray. “With that said, clubs that are looking to grow require a more flexible business model that will allow for recruitment to take place not only at the beginning of their season, but anytime anyone is paying attention to curling.”

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