Organizers of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts are happy with how the 2023 edition of the Canadian women’s curling championship unfolded in Kamloops this year.

“It was more than we ever imagined,” Vice-Chair Linda Bolton told NL News Monday, one day after Team Kerri Einarson won their fourth consecutive title, by beating Jennifer Jones’ Manitoba rink 10-4 in the final draw at Sandman Centre.

Bolton says it was a lot of work for her and her co-vice chairs – Brian Fisher and Brenda Nordin – over the past year to ensure that the event was a success.

“Brian worked hours on the facility doing everything it took to turn a hockey arena into an ice arena,” she said. “As the players came in, our local hotels took really good care of them, our restaurants, [the players] spoke nothing but high commendations to all of them.”

“Brenda worked really hard on transportation and lounges to make sure everybody was taken care of from volunteers to sponsors. The 319 volunteers all had to be uniformed and organized and scheduled by all our directors. Our officiating team were phenomenal and flown in from all over the country, so yeah, its amazing, all the pieces of the puzzle [that have to come together.]”

A special thank you to the Kamloops host committee vice-chairs Linda Bolton, Brian Fisher and Brenda Nordin! They have been working tirelessly all year long and their work is very appreciated. They were presented with personalized jerseys at the fifth end break.#STOH2023 pic.twitter.com/ezJ2i1pSnx

— Curling Canada (@CurlingCanada) February 27, 2023

Curling Canada says there were a total of 51,255 fans in attendance at Sandman Centre over the 10 days of the tournament – the first Scotties since 2020 to have fans in the stands.

“[It] is a great number,” Curling Canada’s Director of Communication and Media Relations, Al Cameron said on the NL Morning News Monday.

“The reason I say it’s a great number is we didn’t know what to expect. You know it is a different market, ticket buying public in general across Canada nowadays compared to pre-pandemic.”

Compared with the past five Scotties that had fans in the stands, Kamloops beat the 46,796 people that turned up for the 2019 edition in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and the 36,854 at the 2016 edition in Grande Prairie, Alberta.

They were a few thousand fans short of the 55,138 that packed the stands in Penticton in 2018, the 56,804 in St Catharines, Ontario in 2017, and the 59,298 in Moose Jaw in 2020, that wrapped just a little over three weeks before COVID-19 restrictions were first put in place.

Cameron, a Kamloops native, said the success of the tournament was due to the hard work put in by local Kamloopsians.

“Thanks to some amazing on the ground work by the host committee here particularly Linda Bolton, Brenda Nordin, and Brian Fisher and their volunteers,” he said.

“They really got the word out and we beat our budget for ticket revenue which is amazing, quite honestly because we didn’t know what to expect and Kamloops came through in big way.”

While Kamloops has twice hosted the Brier – the national men’s curling championships – in 1996 and again in 2014, this was the first time that the city hosted the Scotties.

Now that the medals have been presented – and the ice is being taken out to get Sandman Centre ready for Friday’s Blazers game – Kamloops is officially the fifth city in Canada, and the first in B.C., that has hosted the Brier, the Scotties, and the World Men’s and Women’s Curling Championships (both in 1998).

Winnipeg and Brandon in Manitoba, Saint John in New Brunswick, and Lethbridge in Alberta make up that very short list, with Kamloops and Brandon the only two cities to have also hosted the Canada Cup, with Kamloops doing so from 2003 until 2008.

“Really appreciate how much everybody put into this. From the city to the fan base to all the sponsors both nationally and locally, the restaurants, the hotels, the servers, everybody,” Bolton said.

“We’re really, really grateful. Yeah, it was amazing. It’s something that is going to have a piece of my heart for a long time.”

She noted organizers will be meeting soon to see what went well and what could have been better, telling NL News they also expect to have an estimate on the economic spinoff the Scotties had in Kamloops to be made available soon.

“There is going to be a wrap up, I mean there always is. Surveys of what was good, what was bad, what can we improve etc., and that will happen over the next two weeks and then, once the dust settles we’ll decide which way we’ll move forward,” Bolton added.

Estimates going into the tournament were anticipating a $5-million economic spinoff to the Kamloops economy, though Bolton said it could be between $6-million and $10-million when all is said and done.

Kamloops will be out of the national sporting spotlight for a little under three months, before the Memorial Cup takes over Sandman Centre from May 26 to June 4.

“There are always lots of things out there that we can bid on,” Bolton said, noting the city also hosted the Special Olympics BC Winter Games earlier this month and the USports men’s soccer nationals last November.

“Kamloops does an excellent job. The city, the people, they are phenomenal, and our city has so much to offer.”

– With files from Bill Cowen and Paul James