The Scotties Tournament of Hearts (French: Le Tournoi des Cœurs Scotties) is an annual Canadian women's curling championship, sanctioned by the Canadian Curling Association. The winner goes on to represent Canada at the women's world curling championships. Since 1985, the winner also gets to return to the following year's tournament as "Team Canada". It is formally known as the Canadian Women's Curling Championship.
Kruger Products, previously known as Scott Paper Limited, is the event sponsor. The tournament had been known as the Scott Tournament of Hearts since 1982. However, in June 2007, competitor Kimberly-Clark (which purchased the Scott Paper Company, the Canadian firm's former parent, in 1997) gained full control of the Scott name and certain associated brands in Canada. Facial tissue brand Scotties is an exception – Kruger will continue to sell Scotties products indefinitely, due to Kimberly-Clark's prior ownership of the Kleenex brand – so the event has been renamed with the Scotties brand. The name change was announced shortly after the 2006 event.
The format is a round robin of 12 teams. There is one team from each of the provinces and one team from the territories. As this only makes 11 teams, the 12th team is made up of the previous year's winning team. This differs slightly from the men's annual Brier tournament where the 12th team comes from Northern Ontario. The teams are the provincial champions of the province they represent.
At the end of the round-robin, a playoffs occur to determine the championship. The system used is known as the Page playoff system.
Famous quotes containing the word hearts:
“This Administration has declared unconditional war on poverty and I have come here this morning to ask all of you to enlist as volunteers. Members of all parties are welcome to our tent. Members of all races ought to be there. Members of all religions should come and help us now to strike the hammer of truth against the anvil of public opinion again and again until the ears of this Nation are open, until the hearts of this Nation are touched, and until the conscience of America is awakened.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)