About Masters of Curling:

The participating teams for the Kitchener-Waterloo Grand Slam: Masters of Curling have been announced and the 'Masters of Curling' title is surely an apt one.

Eighteen of the best curling squads in the world will trade rocks for the first Grand Slam title of the year. The hardware these guys are sporting could rival a curling stone in weight.

"Everybody's in there that should be in there," Randy Ferbey said. "It's definitely a strong, strong field."

Some of that strong field include top money winners like 1995 world champion Kerry Burtnyk, 2002 Olympic silver medalist and two-time Brier champ Kevin Martin, as well four-time Brier and three-time world champions Team Ferbey.

The United States' top squad, 2006 Olympic bronze medal winner Pete Fenson, will attend as will former World Junior champion Tom Brewster from Scotland.

2006 Olympic gold medal winner Brad Gushue, two-time Brier and 1996 world champion Jeff Stoughton, and Brier and world champs Team Middaugh will compete as well.

Last year's Masters of Curling Grand Slam winner Randy Ferbey will try to defend his title against all of those teams and rounding out the spiel will be teams Glenn Howard, Pat Simmons, Pierre Charette, John Base, Don Walchuk, Mark Dacey, Kevin Koe, Bob Ursel, Jean-Michel Menard and Mark Johnson.

"I don't know who should be in there that's not," Ferbey said. "Maybe the 14th to 18th place teams you might be able to switch with spots 19 to 23 but still, (the field)is as strong as you're going to get."

The Kitchener-Waterloo Grand Slam goes November 29 to December 3 at the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex and features a purse of $100,000.