Grand Slam events offer a purse of at least CAD$100,000, and feature the best teams from across Canada and around the World.
The original four events (Masters, Open, National, and Players' Championship) are considered to be "majors".
[3] Eighteen of the top twenty men's teams in the country, known as the "Original 18", agreed to boycott the Brier from 2001 to 2003 and created the Grand Slam of Curling.
[4] The original 18 skips were Dave Boehmer, Kerry Burtnyk, Pierre Charette, Glen Despins, Dale Duguid, Bert Gretzinger, Glenn Howard, Bruce Korte, Allan Lyburn, William Lyburn, Kevin Martin, Greg McAulay, Wayne Middaugh, Kevin Park, Brent Pierce, Vic Peters, Peter Steski and Jeff Stoughton.
In 2012, the Grand Slam of Curling was acquired by Rogers Media via its Sportsnet subsidiary.
As such, Sportsnet became the main media rightsholder of the series, although CBC Sports would still carry championship rounds of selected events.
[8][9][10] In 2017, Yare TV began broadcasting online streams of the Grand Slams, opening up access to fans outside of Canada.
The 2020–21 season was supposed to include the first international Grand Slam, the Canadian Open (renamed to the Open) to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States,[12] but that too was cancelled along with the Tour Challenge that season.
The group includes Jennifer Jones, John Morris and former American football player-turned curler Jared Allen, and Marc Bulger.
Sportsnet will remain the Canadian broadcaster of the tour under a multi-year agreement of unspecified length.
[13] The GSOC Tour Challenge was introduced as a men's and women's event in the 2015–16 curling season.
Teams accumulate points based on their performance in each of the slams except for the Champions Cup and Tour Challenge Tier 2.