It’s not all bad for Wisconsin curling siblings

GANGNEUNG, South Korea – Becca Hamilton leaned down to sign the USA Curling picture that her brother, Matt, had just autographed. She handed it to the appreciative fan in the hallway at the Gangneung Curling Centre.

“Thank you so much for this, Becca,” Katie Couric said as she grabbed the picture and headed into the cold Saturday morning air. “It was so nice meeting you."

See, it’s not all bad. The Hamiltons, who are from McFarland, Wis., made the transition Saturday from smacking the ice with their brooms in frustration — from various, visible outbursts of anger — to resignation and perspective.

This time it was polite handshakes and sullen expressions after a strong start against China faded into a 6-4 loss. They posted their most dominating performance of the tournament in mixed doubles, crushing Norway, 10-3, in only six ends Saturday evening at the Gangneung Curling Center.

Despite the strong showing, the Hamiltons' chances of advancing to the semifinal round ended when Switzerland picked up its fourth win with a 6-4 victory over Korea. Team USA entered the evening needing wins over Norway and Finland and two losses by Switzerland to keep alive the hope of a tie-breaker playoff for the final semifinal berth.

Currently 2-4 in the round robin tournament, the U.S. will close out mixed doubles competition against winless Finland on Sunday.

But this is about performance, too. And the Hamiltons played much better than they did in losing to Korea by mercy rule Friday, 9-1, in six ends rather than the usual eight ends for mixed doubles, which is making its debut in the Pyeongchang Olympics.

“It’s a lot easier to be content if you didn’t play awful,” Matt Hamilton said, and China’s comeback from an early 2-0 deficit was not nearly as devastating as the last-second reversal Switzerland pulled Friday on the Americans – the Swiss, trailing, 4-3, in the eighth end, pulled off an extremely rare perfect score, a “six-ender,” to win 9-4.

The Hamiltons were intent on taking a different approach from the start. They were laughing and joking as the match began. They high-fived and low-fived and fist-bumped after good shots. There was no sibling bickering to be seen. Less tension. The energy was positive.

“Matt and I got here this morning and we knew we just had to focus on each other,” Becca Hamilton said.

“That’s my normal style,” Matt Hamilton said. “Maybe (before) it was the Olympics, maybe I didn’t want to be a little too hyper out there, maybe I was trying to keep my own head, I don’t know. But that’s the energy I normally try to bring to the game, and that’s what we win with. Obviously we didn’t win today but we had a good game and, you know, wrong side of the inch.”

And bad strategy. Rather than take a power play in the sixth end when they had the hammer (the last throw) with the score tied at 3-3, they played it straight. A power play — each team gets one per match — moves the two stones that normally start on the center line to the side, and is essentially a safer strategy with the hammer. The China team of Ba Dexin and Wang Rui got a steal to go up, 4-3, the key moment in the match.

“It was just kind of a boneheaded play not taking the power play in the sixth,” Matt Hamilton said. “We got a little aggressive, we felt like we were playing good and were confident we could score a point there. I got a little heavy on my last rock and kind of took the chances out of Becca’s hands.”

Said USA Curling coach Jake Higgs: “I was surprised we didn’t power play in the sixth end. We’ve talked about that, that if we’re tied or one down we would normally power play in the sixth. But we have to go with what feels right at the time . ... If we’re not going to power play we have to make sure we score at least one. So that was I think what kind of undid us in this game.”

The Hamiltons, who will compete with their respective men’s and women’s teams when that competition begins next week, have two preliminary matches left, and Higgs said they “need to keep grinding now, because you never know what might happen” in terms of a longshot tiebreaker.

But this felt like an acknowledgment that things simply weren’t going to work out the way they hoped. And it felt like an appreciation of the moment as well. The Hamiltons are at the Olympics. They got their own picture with Couric. And they’re done broom-blasting the ice.

“We’ve got USA on our back and that’s always an honor,” Becca Hamilton said.