Sunday morning wins for Canada, UK, ROC and Sweden men
Wins for Canada, Great Britain and ROC in Sunday morning’s sixth round-robin session for men kept the hunting group in contact with leading Sweden.
Patience paid off, however, for the Swedes as they kept their undefeated record at the top of the table, with a final steal of two for a 6-4 win over Norway.
USA v Canada
Canada faced the United States in this session and opened strongly, making one in the first end and then stealing four in the second when the American jumper John Shuster got a selection attempt wrong.
An additional steal of one in the fifth gave Canada a 7-1 lead at the break.
Both teams picked up their substitutes at the fifth end to play the lead – Marc Kennedy for Canada and Colin Hufman for the Americans.
The United States had a brief resurgence and made three in the sixth end to reduce the Canadian lead to 7-4. But eventually Canada skipped Brad Gushue and scored two goals in the ninth end to complete a 10-5 win.
After the game, Canadian alternate Kennedy expressed his surprise at getting on the ice, “It was fun. It’s an incredible opportunity for me to be here with these guys, you know I had no expectations to play, so the opportunity getting more than one ending was amazing, I loved every minute of it. ”
China v Great Britain
Great Britain faced China and, after China opened the scoring with a single point in the first end, Great Britain took a clear lead with four points in the second.
Then, with a 4-3 lead, Britain extinguished the fifth, sixth and seventh ends before scoring three in the eighth when Chinese Ma Xiuyue missed a selection attempt, leaving Britain’s Bruce Mouat with an open draw for a 7-3 lead.
Britain held a 7-4 lead as the team played the tenth, and Mouat was content to pull off China’s guards throughout this end until he effectively drove his opponents off the rocks. Great Britain recorded its third win so far, with 7-6, and joins Switzerland – which sat outside this session – in second place in the rankings.
After a speech, Britain’s leader Hammy McMillan said: “The four at the other end gave us some respite and we could take ourselves before the match. We are quite happy with where we are right now, but we have a tough finish – we look forward to it though.”
Italy v ROC
In the match between ROC and Italy, after a blank opening end, the team exchanged three points twice to go into the fifth-final break level, 6-6.
ROC extinguished again, at the sixth end. Then, in the seventh, their jumper Sergei Glukhov scored one point with a hit, to a lead of 7-6.
Italy’s Joel Retornaz then played a draw against one in the eighth end to level the game again, 7-7. However, three more points by the ROC in the ninth were enough to give them a 10-7 win.
After this victory, ROC-ship Glukhov said: “We feel really good because it was one of the key games for us. It is really important for us to feel confident, and we will just try to keep our emotions and concentration for future matches.”
He added, “We try not to have any expectations, we just try to play the same every game. I do not even know against which team we will play tonight.”
Norway against Sweden
The fourth match in this session was between the undefeated table tops Sweden and Norway.
After a single steal in the fourth end, Norway held the lead with 2-1.
They built on this in the sixth end when a referee’s measure gave them another single steal, to 3-1.
When the team played the tenth final, they were even 4-4. With the last stone in the game, the Norwegian jumper Steffen Walstad just released his selection goal, which left two Swedish stones that are counted for a 6-4 victory for Sweden.
In the table, Sweden now has five wins, while Great Britain and Switzerland share a won three lost a record in second place.
Canada and the ROC share fourth, with three wins and two losses, while Denmark and Italy are still looking for their first wins at the foot.
Results for men’s session six: Norway 4-6 Sweden; China 6-7 Great Britain; USA 5-10 Canada; Italy 7-10 ROC
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