We have now celebrated our 50th successive year of “Highland Week” which originally started back in 1967 the year the “Aviemore Centre” opened following construction from a greenfield site.

Those who attended “Highland Week” over the years (till 1999) or came to Aviemore to curl in other Bonspiel's will remember the curlers haunts:- "Das Stubel" "Deer Stalker" "Osprey Room" "The Badenoch" "The Strathspey" all built as a package that will bring back great memories of curling friends made and never forgotten, many friends have passed to the ice rink in the sky but my bet is they meet on the first week of March annually and take part in their own “Skyland Week”

Visiting curlers are the lifeblood of any bonspiel however never to be forgotten either are the local curlers who had the vision and enthusiasm to create such a Bonspiel and were responsible for making it such a success, Major Allan Cameron, Eric Brown, Tom Pendreigh, Dennis and Sandra South, Nigel Grant, Sandy Russell, Hector MacLennan and George Grant.

The Bonspiel started off sponsored by "Johnnie Walker" Whisky from 1967 to 1979 (incl) with 32 rinks moving up to a regular 40 rinks as popularity grew, the sponsorship then changed to "Weatherseal Windows" from 1980 to 1986 (incl) followed by "Glenfarclas" Whisky from 1987 to 1992 (incl) & finally since 1993 to today it is multi sponsored and run by a committee of local curlers. All sponsors will be credited on a separate page

The Bonspiel continued with 40 rinks at "The Aviemore Centre" with the last one being held there in 1999. The demise of the Aviemore Ice Rink came as a great blow to Highland Week as well as to the local curling fraternity.

In the new millennium we moved to a new venue “Inverness Ice rink” This was decision the committee of the time had to consider very carefully,

? Do we hold the final week in Aviemore and consider the Bonspiel has run its course.

? Will we be able to create the atmosphere in any other venue.

? Will the hotel accommodation in another venue be able to cope with a week of International Curlers renowned for their late nights and early mornings?

? Can we maintain the Highland Week spirit in another ice rink where the hotel is going to be remote from the rink?

These considerations were discussed with participants during the 1998 and 1999 Bonspiel's and the overwhelming message was "We will support you" we the curlers will make it work all you lot (the Committee) have to do is make the arrangements annually and we will be there.

The Highland week is now run in the Inverness Ice Centre but has been reduced in size from the normal 40 rinks to 32 rinks. The reduction of rinks came about again after discussion with the curlers. Inverness has only five sheets compared to the seven sheets we had in Aviemore.

If we maintained the 40 rink entry obviously we would have longer curling days to accommodate the schedule which would encroach on the social side of the Bonspiel, there was no contest they wanted the same format but you must not use social time so a reduction to 32 rinks was the only way.

Our move from Aviemore to Inverness has been very successful with no major disadvantages, we run the Bonspiel in the same format as always except we only have a Main competition, and Supplementary competition where as in Aviemore we also ran a consolation competition.

All curlers are guaranteed 7 games with the curling starting on the Sunday with the finals on Friday Afternoon.

A typical weeks programme will be shown on another page

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