PointsBet Invitational altered to help Canada's top curling teams prepare for Olympic trials

It's all about Olympic trials for the Canada's top curling teams now.

November's trials in Halifax will determine which men's and women's teams representing Canada at the 2026 Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy.

Canada's last Olympic gold medals in team curling were won in 2014, when teams skipped by Jennifer Jones and Brad Jacobs prevailed in Sochi, Russia.

Seven of the eight men's teams and seven of the eight women's teams bound for the Halifax trials are competing this week in the PointsBet Invitational that's been altered to mimic the trials environment.

It's not the quirky, single knockout event it was its first three years when there was the odd monster upset and a few favourites went home early.

Each team gets four round-robin games in Calgary. The finals are Sunday at WinSport's Markin MacPhail Centre.

"For this year, with the Olympic trials, I think it's a good switch," Brad Gushue said Wednesday after his team opened with an 8-6 win over national junior men's champion Calan MacIsaac.

The men's and women's PointsBet fields of 10 teams aside is divided into two pools. The top team in each pool meets in the championship games of the event that offers a prize purse of $300,000.

Curling Canada dropped the number of PointsBet teams from 32 to 20 this year.

With 14 already assured trials berths, five of the six remaining teams compete Oct. 20-26 in the Home Hardware Canadian pre-trials in Wolfville, N.S.

The men's and women's winners in Wolfville complete the trials field in Halifax.

So, this year's PointsBet is a trials dress rehearsal for most teams.

"It makes a lot of sense to get a few more games in," said Matt Dunstone.

"You get a feel for what Halifax can look like in a couple of months."

Dunstone, whose team won