Team Canada to play rival Sweden for spot in World Championship semi-final
Team Canada will need a repeat of Friday night as the team led by skip Brad Gushue took down Sweden 8-5 at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Ottawa.
The win solidified a rematch of the two teams in the qualification round – Canada finished with a 9-3 record despite losing two of their first four games, while Sweden finished with an identical record of 9-3.
Team Canada will be looking to avenge last year’s loss to Sweden in the championship game, where a Niklas Edin-led team took down Gushue and company by an 8-6 final.
In fact, these teams are used to facing off in the gold medal match rather than the qualification. Sweden has won four straight world men’s championships, and three of those have come with gold medal wins versus Canada. In fact, the last seven winners of the Worlds have been either Canada or Sweden.
On the other side of the bracket, Norway and Italy will square off in the qualification round, while first-place Switzerland, and Scotland will await the winners in the the semi-final.
The curling match gets underway at 2 p.m. EST at TD Place in Ottawa, with the semi-final taking place at 7 p.m. if Canada advances.
Canada overcomes slow start at curling worlds
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.