The Canadian Press
BASEL, Switzerland—With an emphatic rout of the tournament host, Canada has sent notice it’s the team to beat heading into the playoffs at the men’s world curling championship.
Kevin Koe’s Calgary rink finished the round-robin in first place at 10-1—capping its run to the playoffs with an 7-2 win over Switzerland in yesterday’s final draw at St. Jakobshalle arena.
After posting a few shaky wins to start the tournament, Canada rounded into form and almost ran the table.
Koe’s only hiccup was a 4-3 extra-end loss to defending champion Sweden on Wednesday.
“It’s a pretty tough field, lots of good teams, and obviously we would have taken [10-1] at the start of the week,” noted Koe.
“So it’s been a great week and now we’re looking forward to the playoffs.”
Canada, rounded out by third Marc Kennedy, second Brent Laing, lead Ben Hebert, and alternate Scott Pfeifer, rebounded from its lone loss with a 6-4 win over Norway earlier yesterday to clinch first place.
Then it followed up with a victory over Sven Michel’s Swiss side, which finished a disappointing ninth at 4-7.
Canada will have the hammer when it plays Denmark (8-3) in the 1-2 Page playoff game today.
Rasmus Stjerne and the Danes finished second following an 8-7 win over Sweden (6-5) in the last draw.
After starting his title defence with four-straight wins, Swedish skip Niklas Edin struggled mid-tournament and will be heading home.
“The experience helps; I’ve won 1-2 games, lost 1-2 games,” noted Koe, a world champion in 2010 with a different team.
“We won’t get too high or low about the outcome, but obviously we want to win that game and get to the final as soon as possible,” he reasoned.
Denmark took Canada to an extra end last Sunday, with a shaky Canadian team scoring three in the 11th for an 11-8 win.
“We played a good game against Canada, but they seem to have picked up their pace since then,” said Stjerne, a former world junior champ.
“But I think we got to stick to our process right now and give ourselves a chance on every shot,” he added.
“Keeping the task at hand is most important and don’t focus on what’s coming because they are going to come big at us, and I think we’ll just try and prepare our best.”
The 3-4 Page playoff will go tomorrow between third-place Yusuke Morozumi of Japan (8-3) and fourth-place John Shuster of the U.S. (8-3).
