WHEN: February 15-18, 2024 – First draws are Thursday night @ 6:30 p.m. (Finals at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday)
WHAT’S INCLUDED: A 3-game guarantee, Saturday night Drag Bingo, Friday evening Trivia, a raffle table full of loot to raise money for charity – and, yes, Food and Drinks are included!
Like last time, registration first opens for individuals, groups, and teams with at least one LGBTQ+ curler. (Individuals and teams of all-allies are more than welcome to join us – but we do respectfully ask they wait to sign-up until Friday, November 3rd in order to give our rainbow siblings a chance to get in.)
BRACKET INFO: We have room for 96 players (24 Teams), who will compete across 6 events! Participants may sign-up as an individual, duo, trio, or full team. When registering a group/team, click on the “Group” option, and then enter ‘2’, ‘3’, or ‘4’ in the sign-up process. This way we know who to keep together on the ice.
Know someone who doesn’t have a full team? Tell them to register anyway. We mean that. We’re striving to make this event accessible to all LGBTQ+ curlers as much as possible. We know not everyone has a full team of clubmates to travel with, so we’re more than happy to help form rinks. We had a lot of fun playing “teammate matchmaker” for the last Drag Effect (a number of which made it to various Event Finals!), and you better believe we’re looking forward to doing it again.
FIRST DRAWS: Thursday night. We do have a number of Friday morning draws, too! Those will be first-come, first-served.
For people concerned about coming in early – don’t be! We’re going to be hosting a Mixer at the club Thursday night to welcome everyone to Windy City Curling for the weekend. Feel free to attend, even if you’re not playing. (We did this for our last bonspiel, and it was a lot of fun!)
DRAG BINGO w/ AURORA DIVINE: Our favorite Bingo Queen returns Saturday night at 8:00pm to host a fun-filled evening of games, performance, laughs, and prizes! (Last year, one lucky winner won a brand-new Goldline Curling Pride broom!)
PUB/CLUB/CUB TRIVIA w/ JOEL PETTIGREW: Everyone’s favorite Polar Bear is back to put your off-ice knowledge to the test with another awesome round of team trivia on Friday night! Win a round of drinks or two, on us!
HOTEL INFO: We’ve already reserved a block of rooms at the nearby Marriott Courtyard Chicago Oakbrook Terrace. We use this hotel for all of our bonspiels, and they always receive high praise from our players. It’s located seven minutes from the club, is near a number of dining and entertainment options, and offers an incredibly affordable rate.
Room rates for The Drag Effect are $92/night USD for a standard single king-size bed; and $112/night USD for a room with two queen-size beds. We have reservation information already on our website at the link above. (NOTE: Hotel breakfast is not included in this rate, and the deadline to book a room is January 15th, 2024.)
ANY QUESTIONS? Reply to this email and ask away! I’ll answer you as soon as I can.
We already have a lot of fun in the planning stages, and all of us at Windy City Curling are looking forward to hosting a house full of Pride, love, and curling camaraderie all over again come February 2024. We hope that will include members from your club!
