Howard rock solid at worlds

Canadian rink defeats France 7-5 in opener

BASEL, SWITZERLAND— Canada is off to a good start at the world men’s curling championship. Glenn Howard opened roundrobin play Saturday with a 7-5 victory over Thomas Dufour of France. Howard and his team of third Wayne Middaugh, second Brent Laing and lead Craig Savill scored three in the seventh end to pull ahead to stay.

“The boys hung in there,” Howard said. “We didn’t panic, we just did what we had to do. I thought we outplayed France in the last half of the game and that basically was the difference.”

Canada will play Germany and the United States on Sunday. Top skips like Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud, Scotland’s Tom Brewster and Sweden’s Niklas Edin are on tap next week.

In other early games, Norway needed an extra end to defeat Denmark 6-3, Germany outscored the Americans 8-6 and Scotland topped New Zealand 5-3.

The Canadian players looked slick with their black and red shirts, white belts and black pants. The Norwegians, playing on the next sheet over, retained their usual fashion edge with their colourful flag-inspired trousers.

The atmosphere was rather tepid at the 9,000-seat St. Jakobshalle as only a few hundred fans were in attendance.

There were pockets of fans from each country in the arena. A few Canadian flags and banners were spotted and some vocal French supporters were on hand as well.

Howard is looking to win the world championship for the fourth time. His previous titles came in 1987, 1993 and 2007.