Lots of smiling after a successful curling event

There was no shortage of smiles in North Bay over the last several days as the hugely successful 2018 Ford World Women’s Curling Championship took place at Memorial Gardens.

An attendance record for a world women’s event was set with 69,391 people checking out the action.

One of the the co chairs of the organizing committee is Mark Brown.

He says the secret to the event was the partnership they started with the city.

“They became our partner in that submission bid. And then we partnered with all the community businesses as far as getting the sponsorship support. And then things really grew from there. It’s definitely the partnerships in the community that made us so successful,” he says.

John Severino is the managing director of Community Services at city hall.

He says they’ve learned successful events like this can play a key role in attracting other key events.

He says this proves what can happen if the entire community gets behind something. As for the future:

“I think we’ve got the confidence that we can go after events like this. We will sit down review the impact and lessons learned and think about what we will do next,” he says.