Gushue side a little out of rhythm

LAS VEGAS After a win that felt like an escape, Brad Gushue was thinking about bubbles and how to get in one.

The Canadian skip felt lucky to steal a point in the 10th end for an 8-7 win over Italy’s Joel Retornaz at the men’s world curling championship Monday.

Canada was 3-1 and in contact with frontrunning Niklas Edin of Sweden 5-0. Steffen Walstad of Norway was 4-1.

Gushue was pleased the Orleans Arena ice was quicker and livelier Monday, but the skip felt slow to adapt his reads to the change.

He also felt he, third Mark Nichols, second Brett Gallant and lead Geoff Walker haven’t been able to establish the same routines they did winning the Canadian championship earlier this month, and the world championship in Edmonton last year.

The arena a short walk from The Orleans hotel means curlers, fans, officials and volunteers continually mix together at the rink, in the hotel and at the pool.

Gushue says his team prefers separation between the event and their down time.

“This whole Vegas thing is, I don’t want to say a distraction, but it’s hard to get into a routine,” Gushue said.

“Here, it’s hard to get away from the event because even when we’re at the hotel, all the fans are there, we can’t get away and we have to find a way to get into a better rhythm.

“I’m certainly going to bring it up amongst the team and see if there’s anything we can do to get any more in our bubble. It just doesn’t feel normal for our team right now at least from my perspective.”

China’s Dejia Zou and South Korea’s ChangMin Kim were 32 while Scotland’s Bruce Mouat was 3-1 alongside Canada.

Zou downed Kim 9-4 and the Scots defeated Greg Persinger of the U.S. 7-6 in an extra end.

Russia’s Alexey Timofeev was 2-2 and Japan’s Go Aoki was 2-3.

Italy and Switzerland’s Marc Pfister were tied at 1-3 ahead of Jaap Van Dorp of the Netherlands at 1-4. The U.S. and Germany’s Alexander Baumann were 1-5.

The top six teams in the preliminary round advance to playoffs with the top two getting byes to the Saturday’s semifinals. Teams three to six square off in the quarterfinals earlier Saturday.

Canada faces South Korea and Japan on Tuesday.

Retornaz throws third stones and skips the Italian team in Vegas. Six-foot-six Amos Mosaner, 22, throws fourth rocks with accuracy on bigweight shots.

Instead of drawing the fourfoot rings for the win, Mosaner opted to play a double takeout and stick.

He drove the top Canadian stone past another at the back of the four-foot to give up the single point.

Gushue squandered a chance to score two in the ninth when his shooter rolled out on an open hit for the deuce.

“It just doesn’t feel normal for our team right now at least from my perspective.”

– Brad Gushue