Misery loves company
Koe rink follows homan’s lead out of the medals
Canada will go home with only one of a possible three medals in curling from the 2018 Games, a shocking result for a country that has dominated the podium for the last 20 years.
Calgary’s Kevin Koe lost the men’s bronze medal game to Switzerland’s Peter de Cruz 7-5, adding to the misery Canadians were already feeling when Rachel Homan’s Ottawa rink failed to reach the playoffs in women’s play.
Just four years ago, Jennifer Jones and Brad Jacobs won gold medals for Canada in Sochi.
The expectations were high this time around, as well. The only saving grace for Canadian curling was a gold medal won by Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris in mixed doubles, a new event at these Olympics.
“Hugely disappointed,” Koe said. “We feel like we’re a better team than we showed in the playoffs and it just sucks that we couldn’t pull it out when we needed to.
“Just too many misses in the final games. Those weren’t our best games. We managed to keep them close but it’s tough when you are not playing your best.”
Many prognosticators picked Canada to win three medals in curling, with mixed doubles being the least likely of the three as it was an unknown entity.
That the men’s and women’s teams were unable to join them on the podium comes as a major surprise. Canada had never failed to medal in the 10 Olympic events — men’s and women’s — held prior to these Games.
Canada has five gold medals, three silvers and two bronze in traditional curling since it became part of the Olympics in 1998.
Koe, third Marc Kennedy, second Brent Laing and lead Ben Hebert had a good chance to add to the total but simply weren’t sharp enough in the playoffs.
Canada fell 5-3 to the U.S. in a semifinal. The U.S. will play Sweden in the gold medal game on Saturday night at the Gangneung Curling Centre.
“It’ll take some time to get over the sting of losing and not winning a medal,” Koe said. “I’m proud of the guys. We battled even though we knew we didn’t have our greatest A-game. I’m sure at some point we’ll look back on it and say I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.”
Koe’s team started the Olympic tournament with four straight wins but lost its next three games. They rebounded with two victories to finish in second place and reach the semifinal but they started to unravel again at that point.
In the bronze-medal game they were never in control, were constantly having to try big bailout shots to get out of trouble or score points and were rarely putting any pressure on the Swiss.
Koe personally had his worst game of the week, curling just 69 per cent.