By Geoff Smith (@smithco on Twitter)

World curling event in Lethbridge now one month away

Mar 22, 2017 | 1:21 PM

LETHBRIDGE – It’s now just a month away.

Preparations are in the home stretch for the World Mixed Doubles and Senior Men’s and Women’s curling championships, which are being hosted by the Lethbridge Curling Club. It’s the first time they’re being held all at once in one location.

Mixed doubles, with its special rules, has been added to the next winter Olympics, and this is a qualifier. So co-chair Mike Mulroy says the competition will be intense.

“They’re only taking eight spots at the Olympics,” he explained, adding South Korea, as host country, gets one of them. “These are important games to be played. These countries will decide who represents at the Olympics.”

The mixed doubles game sees five stones per team each end, with one stone pre-placed. It’s described as a faster variation of the sport. Thirty-nine countries will be taking part in the mixed doubles, compared to 23 for the senior men’s and 15 for the senior women’s.

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“I would say Lethbridge is ahead of the curve,” said Darren Moulding of the Lethbridge Curling Club, who recently helped represent Alberta at the Brier. He’ll be working the event, and on Wednesday, March 22 he helped demonstrate the game at a luncheon.

“You’re seeing a big uptick in entries for bonspiels,” he said about mixed doubles, which he attributes partly to only needing two curlers per team. “It’s very athletic, a lot of sweeping, a lot of moving, so you’re attracting a lot of the younger curlers, I find, which is definitely a good thing for the sport.”

The event runs April 22 to 29, and organizers are pleased to have had 260 volunteers sign up to help stage it.