Cranbrook Mayor Scott Manjak said hosting the Canada Cup of Curling next year is a very good news item for the city.

?This is very exciting. It?s an opportunity to again showcase our community,? he said. ?It?s a great bunch of volunteers who have a vision of bringing this world class event, all the top Canadian curlers will be coming to Cranbrook so we?re very happy with that.

?We see it as a very good news item. We?ll have a lot of visitors in town, hotels will hopefully be busy, restaurants will hopefully be busy, and stores will be busy. It?s a good initiative.?

At Monday night?s City Council meeting a delegation presented the details of the event and asked for the City?s support in waiving the rental fees of the Cranbrook Rec Plex for the 10 days of the event.

In order to give the delegation an answer the same night, Council voted to suspend the rules of procedure and told the delegation the rental fee for the Rec Plex would be waived for the period of the event.

?It should be noted the city also gets some revenue back on that,? Manjak said. ?We get a percentage of the ticket sales as well.?

Colin Campbell and Tracey Amy of the Canada Cup Bid Committee presented as a delegation and described the benefits of the event being held in Cranbrook.

The projected audience numbers would be between 2,000 and 3,000 per draw and about 4,000 people for the finals. TSN?s 15 hours of live coverage during the event is worth in excess of $300,000 in coverage.

Campbell and Amy explained there is no financial risk to the local Canada Cup Committee and the terms of the contract provide a financial guarantee of $15,000 to the host committee.

Manjak said another benefit of hosting the Curling Cup locally is the opportunity for the Cranbrook Curling Club to garner interest in the sport and promote itself, hopefully in order to attract more participants.

Coun. Diana Scott said the event will bring the community together in the same way the Kimberley Cranbrook B.C. Winter Games and Hockeyville did.

According to an Economic Impact Analysis of the Canada Cup of Curling to be held in Medicine Hat this year, the event is expected to create an economic impact of approximately $13,200,000. That figure is based on figures provided by the Medicine Hat Accommodation Association, figures from previous events, and figures provided by the organizing committee. The economic impact comes from visiting participant spending, local participant spending, expenditure at Keith?s Patch (an entertainment area), Canadian Curling Association spending and Canada Cup of Curling Organizing Committee spending.

Yorkton held the Canada Cup of Curling in 2009 and has a population of 17,603 and the capacity of the rink where the event was held was 1,800. There was a total of 5,977 visitors to Yorkton, which was 25 per cent of total spectators for the event.