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:
“The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.”
—John Adams (1735–1826)