It will be an exciting weekend at the Whitehorse Curling Club as the third annual Canadian Tire Sportsman's Bonspiel is scheduled to begin today at 4:30 p.m.

This year's draw for the Sportsman's bonspiel will feature 26 teams that will play five, six end games from today through Sunday.

Teams are being divided into three divisions of six and one division of eight. To level the playing field, organizers ranked each team according to its overall skill level and placed them in the appropriate division.

The bonspiel uses an alternative points system, which awards two points for each end win, one point for an end loss and one point each for a tie.

"It's a great way to do it because you are always in the game," said bonspiel organizer Bernie Adilman.

In addition to the 4:30 p.m. draw, the bonspiel will feature a 9 p.m. draw and five more draws on Saturday. Sunday will have two draws, with the final one being held at noon.

Adilman said its a benefit to have the different divisions.

"That was scaring a lot of teams a way, knowing they wanted to come in for fun and then they get blown out," he said. "So this way you are in every end and you play every end basically like a skins end because the final actual score of the game doesn't matter, it's how many ends you win."

Organizers haven't skimped on the prizes, which will be setup on a table in the curling club. Prizes will be given out to roughly two-thirds of the teams entered in the bonspiel.

The team that finishes with the most points, in any division, gets first selection at the prize table.

All of the prizes are from Canadian Tire and they are mostly outdoor themed.

Adilman said the prizes include tools camping equipment, finishing gear and a little bit of hunting supplies.