By KEVIN BERGER, Local Journalism Initiative
The 2025-2026 season at the Martensville Curling Club is absolutely jam-packed with local bonspiels, provincial qualifiers and at least one major international event happening just before Christmas.
Karen Gruza, secretary of the Martensville Curling Club, said their ice went in at the beginning of September. Regular league play will commence on Monday, October 6 and will continue throughout the season, running Monday to Thursday.
Prior to league play starting up, however, the first event at the Martensville Curling Club will be the Sask Curling Tour (SCT) Men’s Slam qualifier event from Friday to Sunday, October 3-5.
According to the SCT website, the highest-placing Saskatchewan affiliated team at this qualifier will earn a host spot at the Grand Slam of Curling Co-op Canadian Open Tier 2 event in Saskatoon from December 16-21.
From that point, the club will go on to host the 24-team SCT Mixed Doubles Event on October 17-19, the 24-team Women’s SCT Slam Qualifier (which is also for a spot at the Grand Slam in Saskatoon) from November 7-9, and the 18-team Aly Jenkins Memorial Mixed Doubles event from November 21-23.
“We do have a lot of events going on this year,” said Gruza.
Undoubtedly the biggest competition of the year will be the Grand Slam of Curling Tier 2 competition from Dec. 16-20.
Gruza noted the Tier 1 event will be hosted at Merlis Belsher Place in Saskatoon at the same time. The Martensville half will feature 16 mens’ and 16 womens’ teams in total, and these are all international teams from around the world.
“That would be our biggest event. So it’s a good opportunity for a lot of people to come out and see some really good curling. There will be a lot of big names and that kind of thing there,” Gruza said.
She noted that passes will be available for people to come out and watch the Grand Slam. They’re not on sale yet, but the club will be advertising them relatively soon.
In 2026, the Martensville Curling Club will continue to host competitive events, incuding another SCT mixed doubles event on January 16-18, the Curling Stadium Women’s International tournament from February 27 to March 2, the Saskatchewan High School Athletic Association (SHSAA) high school girls provincials on March 6-7 and the CurlSask Mixed Provincials on March 12-15.
While there are criteria for hosting all these big events that Martensville happens to meet — a required number of sheets, proximity to Saskatoon, etc. — Gruza attributed the fact so many competitions make their way to Martensville to their icemaker.
Not only is he involved with CurlSask and knows a lot of people, he’s also “one of the best icemakers in the province. That played a huge part in it as well,” she said.
In between all those competitions, the club will also host its own bonspiels, including the Curl n’ Crawl on December 5, 2025; the Senior Spiel on Jan. 9-11, 2026; the annual Ladies Spiel from January 30-31, 2026; and the Year End FUN Spiel on March 20-21, 2026.
“So we have lots of competitive events that people can come out and watch some really good curling. We also have lots of events for just local people if they want to come and curl and have fun as well,” Gruza said, adding they also have a fully-stocked lounge for socializing.
On a final note, she said the club is taking a year off from fundraising, having recently wrapped up a major campaign to purchase brand new rocks.
“We raised funds for a couple of years in order to be able to support that. So we’re kind of giving our volunteers a break here.”