The 67th International Bonspiel came to a close last Sunday at the Whitehorse Curling Club (WCC).

The bonspiel featured 40 teams, which works out to 160 curlers. There was eight women's teams, 18 mixed teams, and 14 men's teams. The bonspiel also featured eight teams from Fairbanks, Alaska.

Team Yukon Stone were the winners of the Women's A event. Team Zealand came out on top of the Mixed A bracket and Team Mikkelsen outlasted the field to win the Men's A event.

Jon Solberg told the Star on opening day that the bonspiel is held annually to celebrate the club's season.

“The International Bonspiel is about an opportunity to kind of celebrate our successes in curling throughout the year,” said Solberg. “And it is kind of a good way to close out the season just coming out and having fun. Maybe bringing out a friend or a colleague who doesn’t typically curl and throwing a fun team in to curl.”

Solberg said the bonspiel is a good way for curlers to catch up and socialize.

“It’s a good social with people they know and have been playing with most of the year,” said Solberg. “For the folks out of town, it is a great way to catch up with the neighbours from Canada for our Alaska counterparts. From the communities, we have a team from Carcross, so it is nice to see the communities coming out.”

With the bonspiel over on the Canadian side, there will be some teams heading to Alaska to compete in their International Bonspiel in two weeks.

“We reciprocate and send teams down to their events to participate and have fun and reconnect,” said Solberg. “Curling is a big networking opportunity. It is a large web of people staying connected and having a social, and we are proud of that part of curling.”