Team Canada advances to playoffs at World Men’s Curling Championship
Team Canada is moving on at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Ottawa.
Skip Brad Gushue, vice/third Mark Nichols, second E.J. Harnden, and lead Geoff Walker were guaranteed to be among the top six teams in the preliminary round at the end of Thursday night’s action.
With two games left to play on Friday, Team Gushue had a 7-3 record. They’ll take on Turkey — competing in their first ever men’s curling worlds — on Friday morning. They’ll conclude the round robin with a Friday night date with Sweden, skipped by the incredible Niklas Edin. The reigning world and Olympic champions had a 9-1 record after Thursday, which ranked them second behind 10-1 Switzerland in the standings. Norway and Scotland, both 8-2, have also secured playoff spots.
Team Canada got off to a bit of a slow start, dropping their opening game last Saturday 8-3 against Switzerland. They bounced back with a 10-6 win over Italy and followed up with an 8-2 win over New Zealand before ending up on the wrong side of an 8-6 game against Norway.
But from that 2-2 record, they went on a bit of a roll, reeling off five straight victories against Japan (6-3), Czech Republic (8-3), South Korea (9-4), the United States (9-6), and Germany (9-4). Their streak came to a stop Thursday night against Scotland. The Olympic silver medallists, skipped by Bruce Moat, defeated Canada 6-3.
The top two teams in the standings will advance directly to the semifinals on Saturday evening. The teams ranked third to sixth will face off in qualification games Saturday afternoon. The winner of each game will move onto the semifinals. The bronze medal game is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, followed by the gold medal game at 4:00 p.m. ET.
After winning bronze at Beijing 2022, Gushue skipped his team to silver at last year’s worlds, losing the final to Edin and Sweden. That was a repeat of what happened in the 2018 final. The year before, in 2017, it had been Gushue who came away with the world title, defeating Edin in the final. That was the last time any Canadian team won gold at the worlds.