The first Canadian men’s curling championship was held in 1927 at Toronto’s Granite Curling Club. The event was held there continuously until 1939 and one final time in 1941. Some facts about the original home of the Brier:
• The club was started in 1875 by five prominent Toronto businessmen who were members of the Toronto Curling Club. They were unhappy at the direction of that club and its decision to build a new facility on Adelaide Street.
• The first honorary patron of the new club was Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister.
• The club’s first site was on a parcel of land just east of Queen’s Park, the provincial legislature. The land was leased and the club built for $700. In future years, the club moved to locations on Church Street, north of Wellesley, and then, in 1926, to St. Clair Avenue, just west of Yonge. Its current location is on Bayview Avenue.
• One of the main reasons to build the facility on St. Clair was to install artificial ice. In 1924 and ’25, because of mild conditions, there had been almost no curling at the Church Street club, which had natural ice. When completed, the new rink was called “the largest single covered expanse of artificial ice on the American continent.”
• Curling was only one of many sports available to members of the Granite Curling Club. Tennis, golf, swimming, bowling, badminton, and skating were all part of the lineup although curling remained the primary focus for many years.
• A hockey team from the Granite Curling Club won the gold medal at the 1924 Olympics.