4 April 2025

Canada first to qualify for play-offs at BKT World Men’s

Before they stepped onto the ice for their Thursday evening game against Switzerland, results from the afternoon session meant that Canada had already become the first team to qualify for the weekend play-offs at the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship 2025.

Previously, they had beaten China by 8-2 in morning play to record an eighth win so far, and they confirmed their play-off spot with a 10-4 win over Switzerland in the evening session.

In the morning game against China, Canada had built a 7-2 lead by the seventh end, and, in that end, China skip Xu Xiaoming missed an attempted hit for one point when his own stone rolled out, and instead gave up a steal of one to the Canadians, who took an 8-2 lead. China then conceded.

After this win — in just eight ends — Canada skip Brad Jacobs said, “Every win is big from here on. We came out with some real energy this morning, which is tough to do at this point in the week.

“Every time we get to spare a few ends, it spares our bodies and spares our minds.”

The game against Switzerland was a one versus two top-of-the-table clash. However, Canada ended this contest with a score of four in the eighth end for their 10-4 win, and this defeat at the hands of Canada put the Swiss into a three-way tie — with Scotland and defending champions Sweden — for second place, on seven wins and three losses.

After this win, Canada’s Jacobs said, “We finally played the way that we can against those guys, and I think we just put together our best game of the week.”

Before losing to Canada, Switzerland had defeated Italy 8-3. The Swiss took an early lead in this game and, in the fifth end, with his team already ahead by 7-1, fourth player Benoit Schwarz-Van Berkel played a run double take-out to score one more point and take an 8-1 lead. Switzerland then went on to win by 8-3.

Scotland and Sweden met in Thursday morning’s session and, by the sixth end, Sweden led by 7-4. Their skip Niklas Edin then played a run-back take-out to score three more points and improve their lead to 10-4. The Scots then conceded the game.

Before this, Sweden had scored four points in the third end, and regarding that, Edin said, “Scoring four gave us a big advantage, we played well the whole game, but that end in particular. We’re just concentrating on winning ourselves, and that win might end up as huge for the head-to-head.”

The Scots then came back out to face United States and when the game reached the eighth end, the Americans held a 5-4 lead. However, in that end, Scotland skip Bruce Mouat played a raise double take-out to score three points and give his team a 7-5 lead. After this, the Scots held on to win by 8-6.

Speaking later, Scotland’s Mouat said, “It’s been a bit of a wild week, with some ups and downs. We know that we didn’t play our best in the morning, and we all try to support each other.

“But we want to come out and just prove that we are the team that deserves to be ranked number one in the world.”

Sweden then faced Czechia in evening play and won by 5-4 thanks to a tenth end draw to the button by their skip Niklas Edin. They now join the Scots and Switzerland in second place on the table.

Behind all this top of the table action, Norway beat Korea by 10-5 in morning play and then had an 11-5 win over Japan, to share fifth place with China.

After his win over Korea, Norway skip Magnus Ramsfjell said, “We’d built a big lead and then they started chipping away at it, so it was just a question of staying patient and not taking too many risks.”

Meanwhile, China had suffered two losses, by 2-8 to Canada, and then by 6-7 to Japan in afternoon play. Despite these losses, China remain in play-off contention, in joint fifth place along with Norway, on six wins and four losses.

While well out of the play-off picture, Korea had the consolation of a 5-3 victory over United States, thanks to a tenth end single steal, to record their first win of the event so far. After this result, Kim Eunbin admitted “It’s a little bit late (to win), but we want to keep this going.”

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