Bottcher warming up to his first worlds
His first world men’s championship game resulted in a comefrom-behind win against a contending team, but Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher was still looking more at the big picture on Friday.
“We’re playing a world championship and that’s friggin’ cool,” Bottcher, 29, said after a gritty 9-6 win over Scotland’s Bruce Mouat at the Markin Macphail Centre in Calgary.
“I’m proud to be out there and I know my guys are proud to be out there.”
Bottcher and teammates Darren Moulding, Brad Thiessen and Karrick Martin finally became Canadian champions last month, winning the Tim Hortons Brier after losing the 2018, 2019 and 2020 finals.
Friday’s first appearance at the worlds was a long time coming and there were some early jitters that led to s 5-2 lead for Scotland after five ends.
But Bottcher scored two points with the hammer in the sixth, stole two in the seventh, gave up one in the eighth, scored two with the hammer in the ninth and stole one in the 10th to record the win for Canada.
“I was really proud of the guys,” said Bottcher, was set to face Japan (Yuta Matsumura) Friday at 9 p.m. ET.
“That would have been an easy game to write off as a loss, try and build and move into the game Friday night, but we found a way to battle back and win it. I think that’s huge.
“I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a little bit of butterflies. It takes a little bit of time, for a few ends, just getting that comfort level back, getting back to business, figuring out the ice and the rocks a little bit. We were resilient that game and we battled hard and that was a big win for us, the first of the week.
“We got some momentum as the game went on and I hope we can really carry that through to the next couple games. We were really playing our best there, those last few ends. That’s exactly what I want to see heading into the rest of these games.”
Moulding said the team’s experience shone through when the Canadians found themselves down 5-2 at the fifth-end break.
“We’ve won a lot of games like that over the years,” he said. “We’re pretty good at coming back. We win more than our share of games in that situation. (Thiessen) and I, after the fifth end, looked at each other and we started laughing and said ‘This is gonna be a sweet win, when we get it.’ It’s just the attitude that we have.”
ROCK TALK
While the Canadians have an advantage over the rest of the 14-team field because they’ve already played — and won — an event in the Calgary bubble, there’s no advantage when it comes to the World Curling Federation rocks that are being used at this championship.
These rocks, which remain in Canada all the time, are different than the Brier rocks and they haven’t been used since the 2019 world men’s championship in Lethbridge, Alta.
While many of the teams in this championship also played in Lethbridge, the Bottcher foursome wasn’t one of them.
Fortunately, they have friends in high places.
“We actually got a nice favour from Colton Flasch,” Moulding said. “He gave us his (rock) book from the 2019 worlds. That just shows how Canadian curlers have got each other’s backs.”
Flasch played second for Kevin Koe at the 2019 worlds, winning a silver medal. The rock book is as log kept by front-end players to mix and match rocks and chart tendencies on each sheet.
“These rocks feel noticeably lighter than the ones we were using at the Brier, so they’re not quite as lively in the house,” Moulding said. “They don’t carry quite as much. I was just missing a few line calls. Skipper threw three shots in a row that were perfect and we got nothing. I smartened up after that and gave him a few good calls. That’s what it takes. You’ve just got to figure it out.”
GRUELLING ROAD TRIP
The 13 international teams in the world championship went through a lot just to get to Calgary.
“It was a really long connection and the flight was about 38 hours,” Russian skip Sergey Glukhov said. “It was not so easy.”
Teams had to self-isolate for three days at home and produce a negative COVID-19 test just to get on a plane. After flying to Calgary, they had to self-isolate for four more days at the bubble hotel and then stay in the hotel at all times, except when practising, for three more days.
Then they had to have four negative COVID-19 tests in seven days before being allowed to compete.
“It was a bit different, in the beginning, staying the hotel, quarantine, lots of security checks, which is good, of course,” said Italian skip Joel Retornaz. “But once you’re on the ice and you play these kinds of games, you don’t really feel the bubble thing.”