Following the conclusion of the BKT Tires & OK Tire World Women’s Curling Championship 2022 in Prince George, Canada, the international spotlight turns to Las Vegas in the United States of America where the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2022 gets underway on Saturday 2 April.
This will be the second time that the Orleans Hotel has hosted this championship, with the last time being in 2018.
Prior to this edition, the men’s world championship has been staged in the United States of America eight times, stretching all the way back to Utica in 1970.
13 of the top men’s teams will be representing their national Member Associations at this event.
The teams qualified through five different routes for this event:
Host: United States
From the Pacific Asia Championships, held in Almaty, Kazakhstan in November: Korea
From the Le Gruyère European Championships, held in Lillehammer, Norway, in November 2021 (in qualification order): Scotland, Sweden, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Czech Republic and Germany
From the Americas Zone: Canada
From the World Qualification Event, held in Lohja, Finland, in January 2022 (in qualification order): Netherlands, Finland
Meet the Teams:
Canada: Olympic bronze medallists from Beijing 2022, skipped by Brad Gushue, who is making a third world championship appearance, having won gold in 2017 and silver in 2018
Czech Republic: this team, skipped by Lukas Klima, who is making his second world championship appearance, but first as skip
Denmark: skipped by Tobias Thune, who is also making his second appearance, but first as skip
Finland: skip Kalle Kiiskinen makes an eighth appearance, six years after his last world championship campaign, in 2016
Germany: this team, under skip Sixten Totzek, finished tenth in 2021 in their only other world championship appearance so far
Italy: skipped by Joel Retornaz, who is making his eighth appearance. This team finished seventh last year
Korea: skip Kim Chang-Min and second player Seong Se Hyeon finished fourth in their only previous world championship appearance, in 2018. Third player Kim Soo-Hyuk is making his fifth world championship appearance after skipping a different line-up in 2016 and 2019
Netherlands: skipped by Wouter Goesgens, this team is making a fifth successive appearance. Their highest placing so far was tenth, in both 2018 and 2019
Norway: skip Magnus Ramsfjell makes a second appearance, having finished 12th in 2019
Scotland: this a new combination featuring Olympian Kyle Waddell as skip, with Ross Paterson throwing fourth stones
Sweden: the reigning Olympic champions and defending world champions. Skip Niklas Edin makes an 11th appearance, looking for his sixth gold medal, having won this title three times in a row
Switzerland: this team, skipped by former Junior World Champion, Yannick Schwaller, is making its debut at this level
United States: skipped by Korey Dropkin and featuring the experienced Joe Polo at third, who is making his seventh world championship appearance, this is a new combination at this level.
Competition Information
There will be 20 sessions of round-robin play, commencing on Saturday 2 April and concluding on Friday 8 April.
This will determine the top six-ranked teams. The teams ranked first and second will proceed directly to the semi-finals. For teams ranked third to sixth, qualification games will take place on Saturday 9 April.
The qualification games will see the third-ranked team play the sixth-ranked team and the fourth-ranked face the fifth-ranked team. The winners of these games progress to the semi-finals.
The semi-finals will follow in the evening of 9 April — the team ranked first will play the winner of the 4v5 game; the team ranked second will play the winner of the 3v6 game.
The bronze medal game and then the gold medal final will be staged on Sunday 10 April.
For this event (and previously at the BKT Tires & OK Tire World Women’s Curling Championship 2022, staged in Prince George, Canada), the World Curling Federation will be trialling a new no-tick rule.
This means that, in that part of an end when the free guard zone rule (which prohibits the removal of certain stones) is in effect, any stone touching the centre line in the free guard zone, cannot be moved off the centre line.
This trial is one of a number of recommendations made by the World Curling Federation’s Maximising the Value working group, and follows wide consultation with stakeholders, including individual players and members of the World Curling Federation Athlete’s Commission.
Broadcast Information
World Curling TV will be broadcasting select games from this competition live on The Curling Channel, in partnership with Recast as well as with our international broadcast partners.
For details on which games are being broadcast and where you can watch them, click here.
Engage with the World Curling Federation during the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2022 on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Weibo and be searching the hashtags #curling #WMCC2022
