BELFAST — The Belfast Curling Club is hosting 20 women from the Royal Caledonian Curling Club Ladies Branch during the highly-regarded United States USCA Scottish Women’s 2022 Curling Tour that will swing into Belfast on Nov. 5.

The Scots will tour and compete against numerous U.S. teams as they curl their way across the country. Belfast Curling Club is one of only 14 clubs in the United States and Maine’s only club selected to host these Scottish competitors. Teams from the BCC, as well as curlers from a variety of other states, will compete with the Scots during this international ‘friendship’ tour.

The Royal Caledonian Curling Club was established in 1838 and is the National Governing Body for the sport of Curling in Scotland. With over 10,000 members in around 550 clubs, it is one of the largest governing bodies of sport in Scotland.

Much “pomp and circumstance’ surrounds this competition, a news release stated. Entry into the club will be through a broom ‘arch’ with accompanying fiddling beginning Friday, November 4 at 6 p.m.

Curlers will be escorted Nov. 5 onto the ice at 9 a.m. by members of Portland’s bagpipe band, the Dunlap Highland Band, to start the competition. A second ‘draw’ begins at 2 p.m. Saturday’s games are open to the public for viewing.

Maine State and local dignitaries will welcome the Scot’s Champions and officially present a written sentiment on behalf of the Maine State Legislature Saturday evening. Saturday’s evening program will end with Blue Hill Maine’s ‘Planet Pan’, one of Maine’s best-known youth-based steel drum bands.

“We are thrilled to welcome the Scots to our club,” said Belfast Curling Club’s Scots Tour Committee Chairman Cheryl Pieske. “Clubs throughout the US host the Scots every 10 years, and we are honored to be one of the clubs included on the tour this year.”

Typically, five years later the Scots reciprocate by hosting 20 women from the US to tour Scotland. However, the next US Scot Tour will be held in four years (2026) due to the rescheduling of the Scottish Women’s Tour because of the pandemic.