Germany pick up two wins on Day 2 in Schaffhausen

On Sunday’s second day of play at the LGT World Men’s championship, Germany recorded their first two wins, while a number of other teams managed to gain their first wins.

Czechia, Japan, Netherlands and, perhaps chief among them, hosts Switzerland, all picked up a first victory in the IWC Arena on Sunday. Roared on by the full grandstands of home-team supporters, Switzerland were 10-5 winners over Norway in the morning.

Team Switzerland in their game again against Norway © World Curling / Céline Stucki

After beating Korea in the morning by 8-6, Germany went on to give themselves a second win, defeating Netherlands by 9-4.

After their win over Korea, German skip Marc Muskatewitz said, “We think we’re playing pretty well. We had a really good start yesterday. We are a young team and it’s really nice to compete here for the first time with this team. We’re really comfortable on the ice, but it’s unusual for us to play in front of a crowd. We’re taking that as an advantage.”

Canada, who beat defending champions Scotland by 8-4 in the afternoon, are co-leading the table with Olympic champions Sweden, who beat hosts Switzerland by 8-7 in an afternoon extra-end game. Both Canada and Sweden are undefeated on three wins and no losses.

In the second end of the game between Scotland and Canada, with the score still at 0-0, Canada’s skip Brad Gushue got his final stone just round a guard to hit out a Scottish stone and take a 2-0 lead. By the eighth end, Canada led by 6-2 when Scottish skip Bruce Mouat played a nose-hit to score two to reduce the Canadian lead to 6-4. Canada then went on to win by 8-4.

Canada third Mark Nichols © World Curling / Céline Stucki

Scotland later bounced back, to beat Italy by 8-3, to sit on a won three, lost one record.

Sweden had beaten Japan by 9-5 in the morning before facing Switzerland in the afternoon.

In the tenth end of that game, Sweden led by 7-5 when Switzerland’s fourth player Benoit Schwarz-van Berkel played a hit for two points, to force an extra end.

In that extra end, Sweden’s skip Niklas Edin drew his final stone to score the one point that gave him an 8-7 win.

Team Sweden © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

In their opening game on Saturday, Czechia had taken Canada all the way to an extra end before losing by 8-9 but, on Sunday against New Zealand they finally got their first victory, winning by 7-4.

In the game against New Zealand, the Czechs led by 3-1 when, in the fourth end New Zealand skip Anton Hood played a hit to score two and level the game at 3-3.

After their eventual 7-4 victory, Czechia skip Lukas Klima said, “It feels great. We had a great first game against Canada that I really enjoyed. We made a lot of shots, so we felt it was a little bit unfair to be zero down after two games, so it is great to get a ‘W’ on the board.”