Alberta Provincials loaded with UofA talent

OKOTOKS, AB - Nearly half the field competing this week at the 2026 Alberta Men's & Women's Provincial Championships are current or former University of Alberta student-athletes, once again showing that the Golden Bears and Pandas program is the top pipeline for elite curling talent. 

A total of 40 current and former Golden Bears and Pandas will compete in the mega-event in Okotoks, with the winners representing Alberta at the 2026 Brier and 2026 Scotties later this spring. Included in the field are both the current Pandas Selects (Team Richards) and Pandas Juniors (Team Deschiffart), as well as the Bears selects (Team Davies) and Bears Juniors (Team Hlushak). The Pandas selects enter the Provincial Championship seeded third, behind two former Pandas teams in the top two seeds; Team Gray-Withers and Team Sturmay. 

On the men's side, the current Bears are joined in the field by recent graduates Johnson Tao and Ryan Jacques, Canadian Champion Karrick Martin (Team Koe), Tristan Steinke on Team Vavrek, as well as Jason Ginter, Parker Konschuh, and Glenn Venance on Team Van Amsterdam. 

The two championships will run as a triple-knockout format, with the championship finals set for Sunday, January 11th.