STEINBACH, Man. — The Grand Slam of Curling kicks off the new year with the Crown Royal Players' Championship.

The fifth and final Grand Slam event of the season begins Tuesday at the Southeast Event Centre. Tickets are available at tickets.southeasteventcentre.ca.

Watch online at watch.rockchannel.com. Broadcast coverage on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ in Canada starts Thursday with Draw 9 at 1 p.m. ET / Noon CT.

Here's a rundown of what you need to know for the event.

QUICK LINKS: DRAW SCHEDULE | STANDINGS

FIRST END: The Crown Royal Players' Championship is the jewel of the Grand Slam of Curling, featuring the largest combined prize purse in the series at $480,000 and a stricter entry process. Teams were invited based on the World Curling's year-to-date rankings, with only 12 men's teams and 12 women's teams.

Both men's and women's divisions are split into two pools of six teams for round-robin play, which runs through to Friday evening.

The top six teams overall advance to the playoffs, with the best two receiving byes to the semifinals. If necessary, one tiebreaker draw will be played Saturday morning. The quarterfinals and semifinals are slated for Saturday, with both finals on tap Sunday.

SECOND END: The rules of play remain the same from last month's HearingLife Canadian Open, but here's a refresher.

All games are played to eight ends. During the round-robin stage only, if a game is tied after eight ends, a draw-to-the-button shootout will determine the winner.

Teams receive three points for a regulation win, two points for a shootout win and one point for a shootout loss.

If a game is tied after eight ends in the tiebreakers or playoffs, an extra end will be played.

Teams will have 30 minutes of thinking time, plus two 90-second timeouts per game.

Each team is allowed to blank an end only once per game. If a team blanks a second time, they will lose the hammer.

THIRD END: The Crown Royal Players' Championship has traditionally served as the final major of the tour season and predates the Grand Slam of Curling. The first event was held in 1993, eight years before the inception of the series. A women's division was added in 2006.

Kevin Martin has won the most men's titles at the Players' Championship with eight, while Jennifer Jones holds the record among women's skips with six wins in the event.

Team Bruce Mouat defeated Team Yannick Schwaller in an extra end during last year's men's final, earning a record fourth Grand Slam title on the season. Team Silvana Tirinzoni successfully defended the women's title with a victory over Team Rachel Homan in the final.

FOURTH END: The road to Milano Cortina draws near, and the Crown Royal Players' Championship will serve as the final tune-up for teams before heading to the Olympic Winter Games.

Seven men's teams and six women's teams competing in the Crown Royal Players' Championship are also heading to Cortina and will surely wish to do well here and enter the Winter Olympics on a positive note.

Those teams are: Team Brad Jacobs (Canada), Team Xu Xiaoming (China), Team Bruce Mouat (Great Britain), Team Joël Retornaz (Italy), Team Niklas Edin (Sweden), Team Yannick Schwaller (Switzerland) and Team Danny Casper (United States) on the men's side; Team Rachel Homan (Canada), Team Sayaka Yoshimura (Japan), Team Eun-ji Gim (South Korea), Team Anna Hasselborg (Sweden), Team Silvana Tirinzoni (Switzerland) and Team Tabitha Peterson (United States) on the women's side.

FIFTH END: The double defending women's champion Tirinzoni is looking to become the first in either division to three-peat at the Crown Royal Players' Championship.

Tirinzoni has been on a roll in the series, reaching five consecutive Grand Slam women's finals in a streak that stretches back to last year's Players' Championship.

The Swiss squad captured last month's HearingLife Canadian Open, trouncing Japan's Team Satsuki Fujisawa 7-1 in the final.

Ranked No. 2 in the world, Tirinzoni has had a stellar tour season overall, reaching the final in eight of nine events and winning four titles.

SIXTH END: Homan holds a record 20 Grand Slam of Curling women's titles, including three straight this season at the AMJ Masters, CO-OP Tour Challenge and KIOTI GSOC Tahoe.

The Crown Royal Players' Championship has remained elusive, though, as Homan is a four-time finalist.

Homan is aiming to become just the second skip in the women's division to complete a career Grand Slam. Hasselborg was the first to win all four majors in the series when she captured the Players' Championship in 2022.

SEVENTH END: Canadian teams were shut out from the semifinals for the first time in a Grand Slam of Curling event at the HearingLife Canadian Open. With three men's teams and two women's teams, it's the smallest Canadian contingent in the history of the Crown Royal Players' Championship, but the home crowd should boost a few teams.

Matt Dunstone and his Winnipeg-based club have reached three Grand Slam men's finals this season and should bounce back from a disappointing winless run through the HearingLife Canadian Open. Second E.J. Harnden announced he will be stepping back from full-time competitive curling after this season.

Kerri Einarson and her Gimli, Man., club are expected to have friends and family on hand. It's been 11 years since the province hosted a Grand Slam of Curling event with men's and women's teams in action when Selkirk held the Masters. Val Sweeting, who now throws third for Einarson, skipped her squad to the title. Both Einarson and second Shannon Birchard attended the event as fans.

"I've never played at home in that kind of setting unless it was provincials seven years ago or back when Portage used to have an event, so it's huge," Birchard said during the HearingLife Canadian Open. "Our families have been waiting patiently for this. Every year they hope that something's there, so it's awesome that there's that new arena, and we're going to have lots of support out there."

Check out "Pete on the Street" from the 2014 Masters as Einarson and Birchard made appearances.

You can take the skip out of Manitoba, but you can't take Manitoba out of the skip: Winnipeg's Mike McEwen now calls the shots for a Saskatoon-based club, but you can guarantee he's looking forward to playing close to home as well. McEwen has shone under the spotlight in his home province. He finished runner-up in the 2014 Masters and captured his seventh (and most recent) Grand Slam title at the 2018 Elite 10 in his hometown. A three-time finalist in the Players' Championship, could McEwen finally win the big one in his backyard?

McEwen will also have former teammate B.J. Neufeld for the event. Second Kevin Marsh is staying at home to be with his wife, who is expecting a baby.

EIGHTH END: Team Yannick Schwaller helped complete a historic Swiss sweep of the Grand Slam titles at the HearingLife Canadian Open. After Tirinzoni claimed the women's title, Schwaller scored his first career Grand Slam title with a 7-4 win over Scotland's Team Ross Whyte in the men's final. With the first one in the books, what's in store for the encore?

Speaking of Whyte, his team lost only two games during the HearingLife Canadian Open, both to Schwaller in round-robin play and in the final. It was the second Grand Slam final of the season for Whyte, who is heating up as he looks to capture his second career Grand Slam title.

Team John Shuster was also on quite a tear at the HearingLife Canadian Open until running into Schwaller in the semis. Shuster has made it to at least the semifinals in every event his team has played this season.

Last but not least, Mouat is No. 1 in the world for a reason, with back-to-back Grand Slam title wins at the CO-OP Tour Challenge and KIOTI GSOC Tahoe this season. The only one who has stopped Mouat in the playoffs in the series this season is compatriot Whyte, with semifinal wins at the AMJ Masters and HearingLife Canadian Open. Will they be on another collision course?