Lawes, Morris rocking, rolling
PYEONGCHANG— They’re kicking a--, er, granite.
Canada’s mixed doubles curlers made it four in a row here on Saturday morning, with a 7-2 thrashing of Switzerland that ended with the opposition conceding in the sixth end. The Swiss, the defending world champions, had come in to the match with the same 3-1tournament record.
That’s three games consecutive where Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris, 4-1 in the tournament, have played just six or seven ends in the eight-end format for the Olympics debut event. A win over the Olympic Athletes from Russia Saturday evening would all but guarantee them a spot in the semifinals.
“We’re just being patient and we’re playing good consistent curling and grinding out some good wins,” said Morris, the 39-year-old firefighter from Calgary. “It helps when skipper — Kaitlyn — is making some great long shots.
“It’s going good but we know we’re in for a really tough one tonight. Probably tough ones for the entire rest of the event now.”
Lawes, from Winnipeg, crushed Switzerland’s spirits in the fifth end when she buried her stone inside the target and the Swiss had no option but to throw their rock away in disgust.
“John swept it perfectly,” the 29year-old Lawes said. “I’m proud of the shots he’s been making too. He’s making a ton of shots, which is making my job easier. That’s all I can ask for.”
Theirs is clearly a nice yin-yang relationship, despite being slapped together only in January, just before Olympic trials. Both are former Olympic gold medallists in traditional team competition.
Although in mixed doubles the potential for a big rally is greater than in team curling, Lawes put the game at a long reach by scoring four in the second end after Switzerland had taken a 1-0 lead.
In front of a boisterous crowd at the Gangneung Curling Centre — the South Koreans have taken wildly to the sport — the Canadians found themselves playing alongside the host nation versus the OAR. They coped fine with any noise distraction — this is curling after all, everybody hurry-hard screeches on the sheets too. But players in the side-by-side matches both found themselves grappling with an on-ice technical glitch.
“They had a malfunction with their measuring devices,” Canadian coach Jeff Stoughton said. “So, when they were measuring (Switzerland’s) first stone, it wasn’t registering correctly. They were getting big numbers. Then they had to recalculate our numbers because they were incorrect as well. There was no issue about who had hammer or anything like that. It was just the numbers because, as you know, you could get eliminated on last stone draw, cumulative scores.”
Both the Canadians and Swiss stayed out there a long time after the match, continuing to discuss the matter with officials because it matters going forward.
“What is unfortunate is that, potentially, if you’re in a tiebreaker and you have the worst LSD (last stone draw), you could be out of the event,” Morris said. “So that’s why it was vital that they get everything right. That’s what we’re pushing for, that all the results are valid and fair for every team.
“They have a new process. You pretty much need a master’s degree in calculus to figure out some of these totals. That’s why it’s prone to more error . . . They’re trying to get it so precise but at the same time it’s quite complicated and sometimes you get errors like this. It’s one thing if it’s a bonspiel back home but when it’s at the Olympics and a country’s medal chances are on the line, you’d hate to see an error like that come into play.
“It would almost be nice to see the old system where you bring out the measuring tape.”