Canada clinches playoff spot at worlds

HALIFAX • Canada’s Pat Simmons rebounded from his first loss at the Ford world men’s curling championship by winning a pair of games Wednesday, locking up a spot in the Page playoff 1-2 game in the process.

Simmons beat Switzerland’s Marc Pfister 8-4 in the morning draw and topped Scotland’s Ewan MacDonald 7-1 in the evening at Scotiabank Centre. The Canadian team of Simmons, third John Morris, second Carter Rycroft and lead Nolan Thiessen will take an 8-1 record into the final day of round-robin play Thursday.

The top two seeds will meet Friday night in the 1-2 game with a berth in the final on the line. The third and fourth seeds will meet in Saturday’s 3-4 game with the winner to advance to the semifinal against the loser of the 1-2 game.

The semifinal winner will play for gold and the loser will play for bronze. The medal games are set for Sunday.

The Canadians, who suffered their only loss to defending champion Thomas Ulsrud of Norway on Tuesday night, are hoping to return to the podium after settling for a fourthplace finish last year in Beijing.

Simmons was in form from the start against Scotland, picking up steals in the first three ends for an early 3-0 lead. MacDonald got one back in the fourth with an open hit but Simmons answered with another single in the fifth end.

Canada took a 5-1 lead in the sixth end and the teams blanked the seventh. MacDonald conceded after giving up a steal of two in the eighth end.

Ulsrud, meanwhile, took a 7-1 record into his evening game against Jiri Snitil of the Czech Republic. A victory would give Norway a share of first place and the other berth in the 1-2 game.

Sweden’s Niklas Edin, the 2013 world champion, picked up two victories to move into sole possession of third place at 6-3 while Switzerland lost twice to fall to 5-4. Several teams still had a chance at a tiebreaker game appearance entering play Wednesday night.

In the morning victory, Simmons hit a takeout to score three in the fourth end and stole two more points in the fifth to put the game out of reach.

“I’m happy to see that we bounced back,” he said. “We were ready to play this morning against a good team and managed to play pretty well.”