In 2001, many male curlers were upset with the
Canadian Curling Association (CCA). Their complaints included the long length of the curling season, not getting any prize money at
the Brier, the national men's curling championship, which generated millions for the CCA, and the inability to have sponsors at the Brier. Eighteen of the top twenty men's teams in the country, known as the "Original 18", agreed to boycott the Brier from 2001 to 2003 and created the Grand Slam of Curling. The original 18 skips were
Dave Boehmer,
Kerry Burtnyk,
Pierre Charette,
Glen Despins,
Dale Duguid,
Bert Gretzinger,
Glenn Howard,
Bruce Korte,
Allan Lyburn,
William Lyburn,
Kevin Martin,
Greg McAulay,
Wayne Middaugh,
Kevin Park,
Brent Pierce,
Vic Peters,
Peter Steski and
Jeff Stoughton. The Grand Slam of Curling began in the 2001–02 curling season with four events: the
Canadian Open,
Masters,
National, and
Players' Championship, the four "majors". After the merger of the Women's Tour and the WCT, the
2006 Players' Championship featured a women's event for the first time, and was considered a Slam for the women too. In the
2006–07 curling season, several existing women's events were designated as Grand Slams, but were not operated by the Grand Slam of Curling. Grand Slam games also got reduced to eight ends that season. In 2012, the Grand Slam of Curling was acquired by
Rogers Media via its
Sportsnet subsidiary. As such, Sportsnet became the main media rightsholder of the series, although CBC Sports would still carry championship rounds of selected events. In 2017,
Yare TV began broadcasting online streams of the Grand Slams, opening up access to fans outside of Canada. Under this new ownership, the separate women's Grand Slams were phased out, with women's divisions added to existing men's Grand Slams. New Grand Slam events were also added: the
Elite 10 in the
2014–15 curling season and the
Tour Challenge and
Champions Cup in the
2015–16 curling season. A women's division was added to the Elite 10 in the
2018–19 curling season, achieving for the first time equal number of events, prize money, and television time for men and women. but that too was cancelled along with the Tour Challenge that season. The Slam tour was back to normal for the 2022–23 season with six events, however it would be the last season for the Champions Cup which was discontinued. In April 2024, it was announced that a consortium known as The Curling Group had acquired the Grand Slam of Curling. The group includes
Jennifer Jones,
John Morris and former American football player-turned curler
Jared Allen, and
Marc Bulger. Sportsnet will remain the Canadian broadcaster of the tour under a multi-year agreement of unspecified length. In 2026, the Grand Slam of Curling's parent company The Curling Group introduced the
Rock League, which consists of six franchised teams consisting of both males and females who compete against each other in a league format. Also in 2026, the series removed the tier two events, and re-branded several of the slams. Select tour events were designated as qualifier in order to give teams a berth into the slams. These include the
Shorty Jenkins Classic,
Karuizawa International,
Prestige Hotels & Resorts Curling Classic,
ATB Okotoks Classic (men),
Autumn Gold Curling Classic (women), the
Saville U25 Challenge,
Stu Sells 1824 Halifax Classic,
St. Paul Cashspiel,
Swiss Chalet Women's Curling Stadium Spiel (women),
Stu Sells Oakville Tankard, and
Henderson Metal Fall Classic (men). This was accompanied by a shift in the GSOC schedule to occur mostly in the fall, in order to accommodate the Rock League. ==Current Grand Slams==