The 48th Autumn Gold has a $45,000 purse and a field deep enough to pass for a Grand Slam while fitting inside a small-town club

There’s certainly gold at this year’s edition of the Autumn Gold Curling Classic.

Gold-medal winners from the 2026 Olympic Games and from the 2026 Scotties Tournament of Hearts that is.

Kerri Einarson and her Canadian champions, Anna Hasselborg and fellow Olympic queens from Sweden and compatriot Isabella Wrana, a Milano-Cortina Games mixed doubles winner, are all among the 28 women’s foursomes vying for the spiel’s title at the Okotoks Curling Club.

“This is pretty good,” said Calgary’s Kayla Skrlik, getting a good read of the competition at the annual event to help usher in the curling season. “You have Olympians on the ice, like it’s a good lineup. I’m out there thinking, ‘What is this?’ Like 14 of the top 15 are playing at the event this year.

“So … yeah … it’s pretty exciting.”

Pretty exciting for the locals, for sure, with a whopping 14 of the top-15 teams of the world rankings participating in the action through Sunday’s finale.

The 48th Autumn Gold has a $45,000 purse and a field deep enough to pass for a Grand Slam while fitting inside a small-town club. Its top unqualified finisher also earns a spot in the Grand Slam of Curling Masters.

The triple-knockout format began Thursday and keeps four daily draws humming through Saturday at 9 a.m., 12:45 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. Sunday’s playoff sprint begins with quarterfinals at 8:30 a.m., followed by semifinals at noon and the championship game at 3:30 p.m. The winner pockets $11,000 while the runner-up receives $7,050.

Entering Friday afternoon’s sixth draw, the A-side unbeatens still featured Canadians Einarson, Grace Lloyd, Danielle Inglis, Amanda Sluchinski and Taylor Reese-Hansen, Swiss rinks skipped by Xenia Schwaller and Corrie Huerlimann and Asian sensations Mina Kobayashi, Yuina Miura, Miku Nihira, JiYoon Kim and defending Autumn Gold winner Eun ji Gim of South Korea.

Skrlik herself dropped to the B-side after a 9-3 Friday morning loss to Team Njegovan, but triple knockout still gave her two lives at the spiel.

“Oh my God! This is the strongest field I’ve ever curled in in my life,” said Skrlik, a multi-Scotties participant. “Like in any event I’ve ever played in, this is the strongest field.

“If I look around the club here, I played next to Anna Hasselborg today,” continued Skrlik. “Not bad, not bad. Yeah … so it’s super exciting.”

Hasselborg herself says she’s excited to finally get a chance to play in the Autumn Gold.

And she’s feeling the love from the Alberta fans on hand for the event, with many offering up their congrats for capturing the coveted Olympic title last winter in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Her decisions so far through six draws have been a 5-2 loss to Miura followed by an 8-2 rebound against Alberta’s Gracelyn Richards.

With all the Olympic heroes in the house, it’s no doubt there’s so much adoration.

“It’s pretty exciting here for Okotoks — small little town that we have and getting all these top players makes everything exciting for our play,” said Okotoks Curling Club GM and Autumn Gold committee member Mike Libbus. “We’ve got reigning gold medallists from last year’s Olympics, and we’ve got the reigning world champion playing and the reigning Canadian champion. So you’re not going to ask for much better than that.”

The international mix also includes Switzerland’s Alina Paetz and South Korea’s Miyu Ueno and Ikue Kitazawa, plus ranked Canadian teams from Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. There is no soft corner of the bracket — only varying degrees of trouble.

Indeed, there’s heavy hitters aplenty, with many on hand to help them prepare for next week’s Grand Slam of Curling kick-off — the Co-op Invitational — beginning next Tuesday in Victoria, B.C.

“It’s a big event for them,” Libbus said. “The purse is pretty strong. So they’re looking to cash in before they head to the Slam next week. So some of these teams, it’s their first event. Some of them, they’ve probably played four or five events already. So the season is in full swing now.”

For fans, it is an unusually intimate look at athletes normally seen under arena lights, national television graphics and Olympic pressure.

The classic has been running since 1978, but this edition has landed at a particularly delicious moment in the curling calendar. Olympic stars are back, Canadian teams are sharpening up and a Masters berth is sitting in the middle of the bracket like one more piece of bait.

That makes every draw worth a look, whether the crowd comes for gold medallists, hometown favourites or the simple pleasure of watching élite curlers shoot the lights out.

The rocks may be granite.

But the field is absolutely pure gold.

“The field’s unbelievable,” added Libbus. “Probably the strongest field ever for the Autumn Gold. I mean … we have everybody but Rachel Homan. And it’s just as good as a Slam field, for sure.”