Sweden hands Canada first loss
GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA— A series of rough ends proved costly as Canada’s men’s curling team suffered its first loss at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
Sweden’s Niklas Edin scored deuces in both the fifth and sixth ends to defeat the Kevin Koe rink 5-2 on Saturday.
Koe says that his team “had one bad end and it cost us.”
“If we played a better sixth end, we’d still be in control regardless of how he’s (Edin) playing,” Koe said.
“If I made my shot in the eighth end, we’re tied up after eight (ends). He needed to play like that to keep them in the game, and he did, and unfortunately for us we just had too many misses in the second half of the game.”
Koe’s Calgary foursome, which had opened with wins over Italy, Great Britain, Norway and South Korea, scored two in the second end for their only points of the match.
Edin finished the game by curling 99 per cent as the Swedes improved to 5-0 to sit alone atop the men’s standings.
“It was a bit of a struggle. I thought we had a really good first five ends but struggled a bit in the sixth, seventh and eighth and really, that’s the difference,” Canadian vice-skip Marc Kennedy said.
“They’re a terrific team and you can’t give them an advantage like that. We did, and unfortunately we couldn’t come back.
“But that’s OK, we’d rather lose now than later in the week so all good.”
Edin’s team stole another in the eighth and held Canada scoreless down the stretch.
Canada (4-1) is second in the standings, Switzerland is third at 3-2 while the United States and Japan are next at 2-2.
The top four teams advance to the playoffs.
Koe, Kennedy, Brent Laing and Ben Hebert are trying to bring a men’s Olympic curling title back to Canada for a fourth straight Games. Brad Gushue won the country’s first gold in Turin in 2006, with Kevin Martin (Vancouver, 2010) and Brad Jacobs (Sochi, 2014) continuing the run.
The Koe rink returns to action Sunday against Switzerland, then faces the United States, Japan and Denmark to close out the round-robin portion of the tournament.