The City of Kamloops has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kamloops Curling Committee meant to foster a collaborative approach to support the continued development of curling in the Tournament Capital of Canada.

The group is made up of representatives of the Kamloops Sports Council, as well as representatives from both the McArthur Island and Kamloops Curling clubs.

Recreation Supervisor, Linda Stride, says the MOU aligns with the Recreation Master Plan, which says that the City should “facilitate discussions between the two clubs to explore the future infrastructure needs of curling in the community” if the two existing curling clubs are longer financially viable.

“Both clubs require significant investment but particularly our downtown club, the Kamloops Curling Club, and then the other one on the North Shore, they’ve identified it small and so both at one point would require attention,” Stride told NL News.

“So this is a good opportunity for us to bring the two clubs together just to start to talk about what this could look like.”

The Kamloops Curling Club has eight sheets of ice, while the McArthur Island Club has six sheets, an average of one sheet of ice for every 6,449 Kamloops residents.

Back in November, Kamloops councilors were told that the City needs a 12-sheet curling rink for tournaments. That facility came with an estimated $30 million price tag at the time.

Calling this MOU “a significant step in a positive direction,” Stride told NL News there are no financial commitments attached to it.

“It literally is a document that is just saying that the Kamloops Curling Committee and the City are going to start to talk about a vision and conceptual planning and that we are all going to do this together versus the city going out on our own and doing it, or us having to deal with two separate clubs,” she said.

“It is an opportunity for us to start conversations with both clubs and really to get a good understanding of what we need in our community, if it were to be one venue. It is also taking in both clubs’ perspective and feedback so that it is not one club that is driving this initiative.”

“We are happy to be at the table with both clubs with the Sports Council talking about the future of curling,” Stride added. “It is a huge sport in Kamloops and we want to keep it alive.”