Table-toppers Canada beat Finland, by 8-3, in Wednesday evening’s 14th round-robin session of the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2022 to consolidate their position at the top of the rankings and move one step closer to qualification for the weekend play-off games.
Meanwhile, second-placed Sweden were beaten 7-5 by Korea to slip into third place on the table behind Scotland, who sat out this session and now have second place to themselves.
In the other games of this session, Czech Republic beat Netherlands by 11-5 and Germany beat Denmark by 10-7 after scoring three points in an extra end.
Finland versus Canada
Canada came back onto the ice to face Finland, having suffered their only loss earlier in the day at the hands of Sweden.
The Canadians opened with a steal of one in the first end then, in the second, Finland’s skip Kalle Kiiskinen ticked off a stone on the way onto the house to score just one point from the end and level the game at 1-1.
In the third end, Canada’s skip Brad Gushue scored two with a hit to take the lead at 3-1.
Canada then scored two points in each of the sixth and ninth ends in a strong second half performance to win by 8-3.
Afterwards, Gushue said, “It’s very important to come back with a win after a tough game against Niklas, but to come back with a win and go 7-1 feels good. I thought we played pretty solid. They play an interesting style which caught me off guard a couple of times and made it challenging for us, so very smart of them.”
He added, “We try to play it simple and leave ourselves a shot. If we score two and threes, then that’s a bonus.”
Sweden vesus Korea
In the game against Korea, Sweden opened with one point in the first end.
Sweden then added a single-point steal when Korea’s fourth player Kim Soo-Hyuk missed his second target on a raise take-out attempt.
Korea led by 3-2 as the teams played the fifth end when Sweden’s skip Niklas Edin scored two points with a draw, to go into the break with a 4-3 lead.
In the eighth end, with the game now level at 4-4, Sweden’s Edin came up short with his final draw to only score one point for 5-4 instead of making a multiple score.
The Koreans took advantage of that mistake and went on to win by 7-5 with a single steal in the tenth end.
Czech Republic versus Netherlands
In their game against Netherlands, the Czech team opened with a score of three in the first end.
In the fifth end, Czech Republic skip, Lukas Klima, had an open hit to score six in the end and take a 9-2 lead.
A score of two points in the eighth end sealed the win for the Czechs, by 11-5.
Afterwards, Czech skip Klima said, “That was a pretty good game. We’ve been struggling with the ice for a few games in a row, especially me. We weren’t making the shots and it was frustrating, but we had a really strong first half in this game and we had a steadier game.”
And speaking about his score of six, he added, “It was a great end. We made a lot of beautiful draws and put a lot of pressure on them. There was no easy way out of it for them. We were expecting to score three then they were unlucky on their last shot. I was playing big weight to be sure to hit it.”
Denmark versus Germany
The fourth game of this session was between Denmark and Germany.
In the third end, Germany’s skip Sixten Totzek played a tap-out of a Danish stone to score two points and take a 4-1 lead.
Eventually, in the tenth end with the score at 7-6 to the Germans, Totzek missed on a raise attempt to give Denmark a steal of one and tie the game at 7-7, forcing an extra end.
In that extra end, Totzek made amends with a hit for three points and a 10-7 win.
Session 14 results: Sweden 5-7 Korea; Czech Republic 11-5 Netherlands; Finland 3-8 Canada; Denmark 7-10 Germany.
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