Canadians ‘gutted’ over missing playoffs
SILKEBORG, DENMARK— Canada has missed the playoffs for the first time in 20 years at the world women’s curling championship.
Chelsea Carey’s Calgarybased rink was officially eliminated in the penultimate round-robin draw on Friday when Japan beat China and Germany lost to Finland.
Those results put an end to Canada’s faint hope of earning the sixth and final playoff spot in the 13-team event before Carey’s final round-robin game against Denmark on Friday afternoon.
Canada finished the event with a 5-3 win over Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont later Friday. Canada, the U.S. and Japan all had 6-6 records, but the Japanese went through on tiebreakers.
“Obviously, we’re gutted with the results and not making the playoffs here,” said Carey, who also skipped Canada in 2016 with a different crew. “But we did a lot of good things and it just didn’t go our way. I’m proud of the girls, it was all their first time at this event, and they were incredibly composed.”
Carey’s chances to advance were all but done after a 5-3 loss to reigning Olympic champion Anna Hasselborg of Sweden in the morning draw.
Two misses loomed large for Carey, third Sarah Wilkes, second Dana Ferguson and lead Rachel Brown.
In the seventh, Ferguson’s takeout just rubbed on a guard, leading to a go-ahead deuce for Sweden.
In the eighth, Carey’s hit-androll went inches too far and was second shot, forcing her to draw for one instead of scoring a deuce.