CurlManitoba has announced that the 2026 RME Women of the Rings presented by Case IH will be played in the Riverdale Community Centre, in the western Manitoba community of Rivers, during the week of January 6-11, 2025
The 2026 RME Women of the Rings will be the second Manitoba Women’s Championship played in the arena in Rivers. Previously, when the event was still called the Scotties, Gimli’s Kerri Einarson and her team (Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard, Briane Harris) won the 2020 Women’s championship and went on to win the first of their four consecutive Canadian championships.
The Rivers Host committee will be co-chaired by Justin Gerrard and Les Wedderburn.
“We look forward to a return to Rivers,” says CurlManitoba Executive Director Craig Baker. “They presented a very ambitious plan to host our junior provincials in the Riverdale Community Centre a few years ago and created a memorable and successful event.”
The Riverdale Community Centre hosted CurlManitoba’s 2016 Junior Women’s and Junior Men’s championships. The 2016 championship is believed to have been the first junior championship event in Canada, and likely the world, to have been played in an arena setting. Prior to that, Rivers had hosted the 2007 Manitoba Junior Men’s in their old curling club.
The 2016 Junior Women’s event was won by Abby Ackland, Robyn Njegovan, Melissa Gordon, and Sara Oliver with Jack Gordon as coach. That Rivers event was also a stepping stone to success for the Junior Men’s champions that year: Matt Dunstone, Colton Lott, Kyle Doering, and Rob Gordon. They were coached by Calvin Edie.
Co-chair Les Wedderburn, who chaired the 2016 Junior Championship committee, knows there is a real possibility that many of the competitors that week will be among the players who return to compete in the Manitoba Women’s championship.
“Really, it will be exciting to see how many of those young women return to compete in a women’s championship, nine years after they played here as juniors. We know they enjoyed their week here then and we promise them an equally memorable week next year,” says Wedderburn
Co-chair Justin Gerard sees the potential for another great champion to come out of the Riverdale Community Centre event. “We’ve been watching the CurlManitoba livestream this week and we can see there is great Manitoba talent just waiting to break through. Maybe Kerri Einarson’s first win in Rivers, and her subsequent great success, can be an inspiration,” Gerrard says.
While there is no guarantee a year out who will be competing in Rivers, the co-chairs do offer one absolute guarantee – they promise there will be great hospitality at next year’s RME Championship. That starts with continuation of a tradition that began at earlier championship events – the coffee is always on and it is always free at a curling championship event in Rivers.
