Grand Slam of Curling  The Grand Slam of Curling (currently known as the Pinty's Grand Slam of Curling) is a series of curling bonspiels that are a part of the annual World Curling Tour. Grand Slam events offer a purse of at least CAD$100,000, and feature the best teams from across Canada and around the World. The Grand Slam was instituted during the 2001–02 season for men and 2006–07 for women, but some of the Grand Slam events have longer histories as bonspiels. The Grand Slam season consists of six men's and women's events. The original four events (Masters, Open, National, and Players' Championship) are considered to be "majors". The other two slams (Tour Challenge and Champions Cup) have unique formats that set them apart from other events on the World Curling Tour. In 2001, many curlers were upset with the Canadian Curling Association (CCA). Their complaints included the long 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 curling teams, 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". In the 2006–07 curling season, a women's side was added the Players' Championship, and 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, Sportsnet purchased the Grand Slam of Curling. As such, television rights to the series have also defaulted to Sportsnet, though certain events may still air championship rounds on CBC. Under this new ownership, the separate women's Grand Slams were phased out, with women's divisions added to existing men's Grand Slams.