CURLING BUBBLE BURSTS WITH FOUR POSITIVE TESTS
World men's championship playoff games resumed Sunday under new protocols
The world men's curling championship resumed Sunday, a day after officials announced four positive COVID-19 tests within the Calgary bubble.
One of the players who tested positive was a member of a playoff team — United States third Chris Plys — and that team was on the ice for a qualification game against Switzerland on Sunday afternoon.
Switzerland beat the U.S. 7-6 to move on to the semifinal round.
Plys tested positive on Friday, then tested negative on Saturday. He was originally ruled out for Sunday's game but he has already been vaccinated twice, so a decision was made by the World Curling Federation, in consultation with Alberta Health, to allow him to play.
“It was very complicated,” United States skip John Shuster said.
“It looked like we were being selfish and trying to get a player on our team, who had tested positive and then tested negative, onto the ice. The fact of the matter is everybody who tested positive on Friday, tested negative on Saturday. So were any of them really positive? Did the bubble actually break?
“It wasn't like we were fighting to be able to get somebody that we thought, at all, was a risk, out on the ice. The fact that everybody's test results came back negative, we thought, was pretty much evidence that these might not have been real positives.”
Postmedia has confirmed that all four people in the bubble who tested positive on Friday, tested negative on Saturday.
Shuster said his team was just happy to have had one more chance to play.
“It felt amazing to be on the ice today, I won't lie to you,” he said. “Mask or no mask, to be able to go back on the ice after the debacle that was Friday and Saturday, it felt amazing.”
Swiss skip Peter de Cruz said he completely trusts the World Curling Federation and Curling Canada and felt safe after the decision was made to resume plan Sunday.
“I've had concerns (about COVID -19) for the last 14 months,” he said. “But if someone tells me we can play then I'm 100 per cent behind it. If you want to win some games, that's the only way to do it. If there are any questions about if it was safe or not, I think Curling Canada and the WCF should have the answer to that.”
The WCF put out a press release saying new health protocols would be in place for Sunday's games, including all players wearing masks during games and getting rapid COVID -19 tests before and after all games.
“The facts surrounding this specific individual were argued to be strong enough for a re-evaluation of the earlier decision, after it was determined that it would put his teammates and opponents at very minimal risk by participating in Sunday's playoff games,” the WCF said in its statement.
When the game between the U.S. and Switzerland finally began, it was not on television, as scheduled.
Host broadcaster TSN said it would not broadcast the game because of COVID-19 concerns. TSN did broadcast the semifinals and gold-medal game, as scheduled, later Sunday.
Switzerland went on to lose 11-3 to defending champion Sweden (Niklas Edin) in one semifinal, while the Russian Curling Federation (Sergey Glukhov) lost 5-3 to Scotland (Bruce Mouat), the team that eliminated Canada's Brendan Bottcher on Friday night.
The gold medal game between Sweden and Scotland and the bronze-medal game between Switzerland and RCF were to be played at 11 p.m., ET, at Markin Macphail Centre at Canada Olympic Park.
The World Curling Federation and Curling Canada were given permission to continue the event by Alberta Health after all remaining participants, coaches, event officials, event staff and broadcast crews received negative COVID-19 tests on Saturday.
All four of the people who tested positive — three were on two different non-playoff teams — are asymptomatic and reportedly feeling fine.
All of the curlers remaining in the bubble, including the Bottcher foursome, have been confined to their rooms at the bubble hotel since Friday night. They were only allowed to leave to get tested for COVID-19 in another area of the hotel.
“It was a really dark 36 hours, I'll be honest,” Canada third Darren Moulding said.
“Mentally, after losing and having our run come to an end, being stuck in the room with a real, extreme, lack of communication … to be isolated and not see your teammates and be confined to a room that you've been stuck in for six weeks already, it's not fun.”
Moulding and Bottcher have been in the Calgary bubble since the first week of March. They won the Brier on March 14, then played in the Canadian mixed doubles championship — Moulding with Joanne Courtney and Bottcher with his fiancée, Bobbie Sauder.
Then came the world championship, where they finished a disappointing sixth, but did manage to qualify Canada for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. Moments after getting eliminated on Friday, the Canadian players went into lockdown.
“We all have held up pretty well,” Bottcher said. “We got back to the hotel shortly after our game and that was when the isolations emails started getting sent out to everyone. We really didn't have a chance to even sit down as a team and debrief that last game, which was a little unfortunate.”
Team Bottcher, which also includes lead Karrick Martin and second Brad Thiessen, will stay in the bubble for two more weeks as they participate in two Grand Slam of Curling events, beginning with the Champions Cup, which is set to start Wednesday.
Three-time Canadian men's champion Brad Gushue is one of the curlers heading back into the bubble for the Grand Slams and he said he and his teammates feel “OK entering.”
Three other teams that played in the world men's championship — Sweden, Scotland and Switzerland — will stay in the bubble.