Lucas Punkari
The Sorting Gap Marina will host another big event next month.
The site of this week’s Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship also will serve as the location for the “Kraft Celebration Tour” visit here on Sunday, Aug. 25.
“The waterfront is a beautiful backdrop here with the river and the sky, and that’s what attracted TSN to that spot,” said Fort Frances Curling Club president Ron Silver, who had submitted the successful bid along with club member Patrick Briere.
“They also liked the openness of it for their satellite link-up truck, as this is where they had the strongest signal in addition to the parking here for their big rigs and all of that,” he added.
The visit, which Fort Frances earned by defeating Dryden in a 24-hour online vote last week, will feature a live broadcast of TSN’s SportsCentre program, along with a community barbecue hosted by Kraft.
The curling club also will receive a cheque for $25,000 that will go towards offsetting the costs of its new geothermal heating unit.
“The TSN crew will be coming into town on the Saturday morning, and they will be doing the set-up of their stages and everything during the rest of that day and on Sunday morning,” Silver explained.
“The barbecue will start around 1 p.m., with the cheque presentation taking place at 4 p.m., followed by the taping of SportsCentre an hour later.
“There will also be an autograph session with Darren [Dutchyshen] and Jennifer [Hedger] right after that,” he added.
“And we’re also planning to have some sort of social meet-and-greet event on the Saturday night, but that’s still being worked out.
“We’re hoping to have a weekend-long party out of the deal,” Silver enthused.
While TSN will have its own crew to set up the production side of things, a total of 82 volunteers are required to help out during the weekend.
“They will be helping with the set-up and the teardown, along with helping to supervise the games for the kids and what-not,” Silver said.
“We are hoping to use a bunch of high school students with that,” he noted.
“But there will be adults that will be needed for some things, so we will be looking to start a volunteer drive here shortly,” he added.
Anyone interested in volunteering can contact the curling club at 274-6667.
