Mixed results for Canada to start the World Mixed Championship in Kelowna

Ontario-based team wins twice before losing to Norway

It had been a long wait to put on the Maple Leaf, but it was worth it for Mike Anderson’s Canadian mixed curling team.

Almost a year after earning the right to represent Canada at the 2018 Winn Rentals World Mixed Curling Championship, Anderson’s team from the Thornhill, Ont., Curling Club made short work of Austria’s Günter Dressler on Saturday afternoon at the Kelowna Curling Club, rolling to a 10-2 victory in six ends in its world championship debut.

Anderson, vice-skip Danielle Inglis, second Sean Harrison, lead Lauren Harrison and coach Jim Waite completed a perfect opening day with a 9-2 win over Slovenia’s Tomas Tisler on Saturday night to give Canada a 2-0 start.

“Between winning last year, and being out here for a few days before our first game, we just really wanted to get out on the ice,” said Anderson. “It was good. The ice was a little different (from practice), and we weren’t as sharp as we hope to be by the end of the week, but it was a great learning experience. We went out to make sure we were on the right side of the win-loss column to start, and we achieved that goal.”

Against Austria, Canada opened with a pair in the first end, held the Austrians to a single in the second, and then took control with four in the third end and a stolen deuce in the fourth when Dressler was heavy with his draw.

Austria managed another single in the fifth, but Anderson’s delicate tap to score a pair in the sixth end prompted Austria to concede the victory.

The Canadian team is entering every game blind with no scouting reports on the teams it will face, but that won’t change the team’s approach.

“We’re treating every team like they’re going to go out and make all eight shots (in an end),” Anderson said. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what colour their shirts are, they’re throwing eight rocks against us, and if they make all eight, we’re going to have to make all eight back.”

Anderson had high praise for the surface put down by chief ice technician Mike Merklinger.

“The ice was almost bang on,” he said. “To have it this way, this early in the season for this type of event, it’s going to be an awesome surface to play on.”

On Sunday afternoon, a slow start proved costly for Team Canada as Norway’s Ingvild Skaga scored three in the opening end and held on from there in handing Canada its first loss, a 5-4 setback.

“We just got off to a bad start, got our angles a little bit crossed in the first end,” said Anderson. “The ice was a little bit straighter than we’d seen and it caught us a little bit. Giving up three is tough to come back from.”

The Canadians hung tough, getting two back in the second end. But the teams would score nothing but single points the rest of the game, with Norway holding a one-point lead and last rock in the last end.

Two hogged rocks, from Lauren Harrison and Inglis, all but ended the Canadian hopes for a steal.

“I don’t think it was by anybody’s imagination our best game, so to keep it as close as we did with our B-game was encouraging,” said Anderson.

With the loss, Anderson dropped to 2-1, while Norway, fourth-place finishers with the same lineup a year ago in Champéry, Switzerland, improved to 2-0 in Group D. The top three finishers in each of the four groups will make the playoffs.

Canada was to play Japan’s Taisei Kanai (1-1) on Monday evening.

Canada has an early game on tap today, 8 a.m. PT against New Zealand.

Round-robin play runs through Thursday, with the quarterfinals on Friday, the semis on Saturday and the medal games slated for Sunday at 3 p.m. PT.