Brad Gushue’s Canadian staff bounced again from a tricky loss on the world males’s curling championship by surging into the semifinals with a pair of tidy six-end victories in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
Gushue and his St. John’s, N.L., staff of Mark Nichols, E.J. Harnden and Geoff Walker completed the spherical robin in second place at 10-2 with a pair of lopsided wins Friday — 9-3 over Japan and 8-1 over host Switzerland.
Ending within the high two was big for Gushue because it allowed Canada to keep away from the qualification spherical of the playoffs and advance straight into Saturday’s semifinals.
“We do not know what the ice circumstances are going to be like tomorrow, what every staff goes to have the ability to do in these circumstances, and who will deal with it finest,” stated Gushue, who has stated the ice at IWC Enviornment has been difficult.
“It is a completely different expertise. This is not simply your conventional curling the place you are attempting to put rocks,” he added. “You actually must handle the ice and the paths, and also you want a bit of little bit of luck.
“There are much more variables on the market, so when you may get to the semifinal and know you solely have two extra video games to win, that is key. I am thrilled to not must play that qualification recreation.”
WATCH | Canada makes quick work of Japan:
Brad Gushue leads Canada to a 9-3 victory over Japan, bettering Canada’s document to 9-2 on the ultimate day of spherical robin play at males’s world curling championships.
Six-time champion Niklas Edin and Sweden (11-1) had already locked up first place within the standings heading into Friday’s last draw.
Scotland’s Bruce Mouat additionally completed 10-2 after handing Edin his solely lack of the round-robin within the last draw with an 8-6 victory. However Canada beat Scotland 8-4 earlier within the match and held the tiebreaker.
After a clean first finish, Canada blew the sport open with 4 within the second. Gushue’s squad constructed on the lead with steals of 1 within the third and two within the fourth.
“Mark made two actually good photographs, and I adopted them up with two good photographs as nicely,” Gushue stated of the second finish. “The tip wasn’t arrange ideally for us, however when Mark makes them pretty much as good as he did, it flips the top round and permits us to be aggressive.”
WATCH | Canada crushes Switzerland:
Brad Gushue’s Group Canada rink finishes spherical robin play with wins over Japan and Switzerland on Friday, ending with a document of 10-2 and advancing to Saturday’s semifinals.
Earlier, Canada scored three within the third and 4 within the fourth finish towards Japan in one other six-end win.
Gushue entered the day coming off a 6-5 loss to Edin within the second of his two video games on Thursday, ending a five-game successful streak. Canada gave up three factors early in that recreation and could not full a comeback.
“We simply needed to cope with the frost and cope with the rocks a bit of bit higher,” Walker stated after the Japan win. “We have been proud of the best way we completed the sport after a tough begin and proud of the best way we grinded, however we needed to get again to the fundamentals at this time, issues like placing on a bit of additional rotation and sweeping the rocks a bit otherwise within the frost.”
Canada searching for 1st worlds sweep since 2017
In different outcomes from the ultimate round-robin draw, top-ranked Italy thumped Norway 8-2 in six ends and the Netherlands beat New Zealand 7-5.
Scotland, Germany (8-4), Italy (8-4) and the USA (7-5) additionally certified for the playoffs
Scotland will face the U.S. and Germany will meet Italy in a qualification spherical Saturday, with the winners transferring on to face Gushue and Edin within the semifinals.
Canada is trying to sweep the boys’s and girls’s curling championships for the primary time since 2017, when Gushue received Canada’s final males’s title and Ottawa’s Rachel Homan received the ladies’s title.
Homan received the 2024 girls’s title final month in Sydney, N.S.
