Loss doesn’t hurt Howard’s standing

CURLING • Canadian skip Glenn Howard had his first hiccup of the WCF world men’s curling championship in Basel, Switzerland on Thursday, but still heads into the playoffs as the top seed and with momentum.

Howard, of Coldwater, Ont., split his two games on Thursday to wrap up round-robin play with a 10-1 record. He lost his first game of the week — a surprise 9-7 setback to New Zealand in the afternoon draw — but rallied to beat China 8-7 in the night cap.

“If you’d told me before we got here we’d have been 10 and 1, I’d have locked that in,” Howard said in a news release. “We finished on a winning note.”

Howard has today off, but will be back in action on Saturday afternoon against Scotland in the Page 1-2 game. Scotland’s Tom Brewster finished the round robin in second at 8-3.

“Hopefully we’ll play better and get the job done,” Howard said.