The finishing touches are underway as Queens Place prepares to host the 2021 Curling Canada Home Hardware Curling Trials.

The top two teams in the men’s and women’s division advance to the Tim Hortons Curling Trials and a chance at representing Canada in the 2022 Olympics in China.

One of the teams hoping to punch their ticket to Beijing is Liverpool native Jill Brothers.

Host Committee Chair Greg Thorbourne says despite the local connection, organizers won’t be showing any extra support for Brothers.

“We are running a national championship and every team has the same meaning to us, as a committee,” said Thorbourne. “We can’t play favourites or anything else or we’d never host another event.”

Crews have been working to convert the ice from hockey to curling since Thursday morning.

Thorbourne says the process to create the curling sheets takes some time.

“There’s probably a 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch of ice over top of the lines for hockey. What we do is we scrape that down until it’s level, perfectly smooth. Then we start putting our water on and after we have it to the thickness that we want we’ll put the white paint over that,” said Thorbourne.

After that, lines, rings and logos are either painted or stenciled in to create the curling rink.

Thorbourne says one of the top icemakers in Canada, Dave Merklinger from British Columbia, has been flown in to oversee the production.

His two person staff will include a member from Port Hawkesbury and Graham Conrad from just up the road in Bridgewater.

A small army of volunteers will be supporting all aspects of the event.

The first rock will be thrown at 5 p.m. Monday and play will continue through the week, culminating in the finals on Sunday, Oct. 31.^.

Thorbourne says tickets are still available by following this link.

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