Canada beats Scots to advance to final
SCHAFFHAUSEN, Switzerland —
Canada’s Brad Gushue will again play for gold at the world men’s curling championship.
Gushue and his St. John’s, N.L., team of Mark Nichols, E.J. Harnden and Geoff Walker advanced to the championship final with a 9-4 semifinal win over Scotland’s Bruce Mouat on Saturday. The Scots qualified for the semifinal game with an 8-4 qualification win over the United States earlier Saturday.
Gushue will face Sweden’s Niklas Edin in the final today. Edin, a six-time champion, earned a 5-3 semifinal victory over Italy on Saturday.
Gushue will appear in his fifth final in his fifth world championship appearance. However, he’ll enter today’s showdown having recorded just one victory, that coming at Edmonton in 2017.
“We just got to get a little better of a record in that game now, so we’ll see how it goes,” he said. “To get to a world final is a big accomplishment, but I’m not too excited because I have played in four others. It’s about winning and playing a good game. The win is somewhat out of control because we don’t start with the hammer [against Edin] but we’ll have to give ourselves a chance and flip the hammer early.”
Two of Gushue’s championship losses have come at the hands of Edin, who finished top of the round robin standings with an 11-1 record while Gushue (10-2) was second. That earned Sweden and Canada direct entries to the semifinals.
Mouat also finished 10-2 after handing Edin his only loss of the round robin, an 8-6 decision in the final draw. But Canada beat Scotland 8-4 earlier in the tournament to gain the tiebreaker.
Gushue took control of his semifinal contest with a steal of three in the sixth end for a 6-3 advantage. It came after Scotland forced Canada to take a single in the fifth following a steal of one in the fourth.
“I thought there was highquality curling,” said Nichols. “There were a few half-shots and three-quarter shots, but they played strong, and it was definitely back-and-forth. Mistakes happen, and we’re fortunate it didn’t happen to us this time.”
Canada forced Scotland to take a single in the seventh before the Scots conceded in the eighth after a draw was light, allowing Canada to score three.