"The first world championship tournament was held in 1958. Canadian teams have dominated the event, which is now conducted by the International Curling Federation (ICF), founded in 1966 and based in Edinburgh."
http://www.rauzulusstreet.com/features/worldscurling.htmCanada has produced curling champions 20 out of 37 times (up until 2009) for men, and 15 out of 31 times for women. Our Canadians are rarely not involved in the finals.
Our women recently came from being tied for 4th place in the round robin to finish with a silver medal at the World's Curling while our men are currently in first place in the round robin (7 wins - 0 losses), having just beaten Scotland who are alone in second place with 6 wins and 1 loss.
In Canada, curling does not involve the country's best players, but rather it's the best
team that competes. Here, the competition is probably more fierce at the national level than at the world's.
The team that just won the Olympic Gold medal (men's) didn't even win the bronze medal at the Nationals last month. And the teams stay together unaltered for years.
The woman's current world silver medalists (Canadians) are a completely different team than the current Olympic silver medalists (Canadians).
Oh and there's quite a lot of hotness in the menz - well at least there's one Olympic Gold medalist, John Morris ...