As fall colours begin to dominate Yukon's landscape and the temperatures take a bit of a dive, sports enthusiasts in the territory turn their attention to winter sports, one of which is curling.

The local curling season will get underway in about a month's time and with the 2007 Canada Winter Games now just around the corner, the Whitehorse Curling Club (WCC) and its volunteers are in for a very busy season.

Last year, WCC hosted a national championship the mixed for the first time in years and their experience organizing that event will certainly come in handy. Especially considering another major event has been added to the schedule prior to Canada Games.

In the spring, then-general manager of the club, Derek Charlton, announced WCC's intentions to operate an annual major cash spiel.

The Nuway Crushing Cash Spiel was planned for November 16-19 of this year, and at the time, WCC was in the process of applying to affiliate the event with the World Curling Tour (WCT).

On Tuesday, the club announced the World Curling Tour has now officially sanctioned the cash spiel as a new event on its annual roster.

'This is a great event; a fantastic profile for our club and for the sport of curling in the Yukon,' stated Trevor Sellars, the current president of WCC.

'Our board and the host committee are very proud to have established the Nuway Crushing Cash Spiel at this level of national profile.'

Charlton, who is now the chairperson of the host committee, said the committee met last month to develop a budget with no available contribution from WCC and decided at that point a WTC event was doable with the corporate sponsorship and proceeds from the teams entering the event.

Fundraising for the cash spiel has been ongoing during the past year and local companies, including the title sponsor Nuway Crushing, have provided key sponsorship dollars and services.

'The private sector really came through on this,' said Charlton. 'The Nuway Crushing Cash Spiel is an exceptional profile for our sponsors and is really the final preparation event to ready the club and our volunteers for the hosting of the 2007 Canada Winter Games curling competitions.'

'Like the thousands of Yukoners who've curled in our Whitehorse Curling Club in the past 50 years, sponsors too are committed to the sport and are impressed with the exposure they get from their contributions,' added Sellars.

Once the local host committee let the World Curling Tour know they could pull an event off this fall, tour officials offered their full support, said Charlton.

'They're thrilled that we finally have an event for them in the Yukon,' he said, pointing out Whitehorse's reputation for hosting curling events is impeccable. Last year's mixed nationals were billed as a huge success by all involved.

He said the Nuway Crushing Cash Spiel will likely continue to be a part of WTC for as long as the hosting committee can get the funding and organization together.

The hosting committee is also working with the Canadian Curling Association's Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS), as Charlton explained.

'This event will now not only allocate points and ranking for the World Curling Tour but also towards the CTRS, which calculates eligible teams for such events as the Strauss Canada Cup, and eventually the trials for the 2010 Winter Olympics,' he said.

Competing for over $16,000 in cash prizes, the cash spiel is expected to attract over 16 high-caliber competitive curling teams, although Charlton was reluctant to put an exact number out there.

'We're really not sure what we can count on. We just want to have a good event for the first couple of years, so we can build up our reputation. We don't have huge expectations for the number we'll get this year.

'If we budget for what's realistic, and just make sure the prize money is covered, then there's no major disappointments.'

At least one 'celebrity' curling team is expected to compete at the Nuway Crushing Cash Spiel in November, with other teams from Alaska, B.C. and Alberta possibly in the mix. Official announcements on who's coming are expected during the next few weeks.

'Air North, the Westmark Whitehorse and possibly one other sponsor are working with us to bring in a special guest team from Outside,' stated Charlton.

The host committee won't really know until after the first year what type of impact the cash spiel could have on the territory's economy, he added, but the impact on the local curling club could be huge.

'The more teams we bring in from Outside, the better it is for our curling teams as well,' he said. 'They get to play games against world-class competitors.

'You can really grow your recreational base as well when you bring this level of curling to the Yukon. Of course it gets the media's attention, but it grabs other people's attention too. When the TSN Skins were here, that's what grabbed my attention and got me interested in curling.'

The World Curling Tour is owned by the World Curling Players' Association. A typical tour season includes 18-weeks of events, starting in September and ending in April.

The first event of the 2006-07 season is the Baden Masters, which gets underway in Sweden on Friday.