Played against Sweden, Canada must bounce back for bronze
Eight Ends is your daily one-stop-shop for all things curling with news, notes, insights and analysis through the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
First end: Canada’s Brad Gushue will play for bronze after finishing short in the men’s curling semifinals on Thursday and losing 5-3 to Swedish Niklas Edin in Beijing. The three-time reigning world champion Edin meets Britain’s Bruce Mouat, who beat the defending Olympic gold medalist John Shuster from the USA 8-4.
Sweden outplayed Canada in all four positions in the percentages. Canadian runner-up Brett Gallant shot 69 percent low in the game and it could have a trickle-down effect through the lineup, leading to higher risk calls. Third Mark Nichols shot 79 percent, compared to Swedish Oskar Eriksson at 89 percent, while Gushue himself shot at a clip of 76 percent with Edin at 90 percent.
Second end: Sweden started with the hammer and never fell behind because Canada could not turn Edin. Although Canada kept Sweden to one point in the second and struggled with control of the last stone, Gushue could not convert on the chance and had to settle for his own single in the third to equalize 1-1. The team switched twos when a big draw from Gushue in the fifth set up his two bills on the way into the break.
Sweden had to take one point again in the eighth end, which gave Canada a golden opportunity to try to make two for the victory after missing the ninth. It was not an easy step either because Gushue’s shooter had to crawl around a guard with a silent weight to tear out Sweden’s shotgun. Edin pulled off a high-pressure hit and rolled on his last in the last picture and Gushue had to try his hand at a tricky runback double but it did not work out. Gushue’s shooter just rolled over a bit too much and Sweden’s shotgun held up for a steal.
Third end: After missing the medal round in mixed doubles and women’s games, Gushue is Canada’s last hope of winning a medal in curling at these Winter Olympics. 2006 Olympic champion Gushue is a favorite with -182 over Shuster in the bronze match (Friday 1:05 ET). Canada made a 10-5 round robin victory over the United States plus Gushue holds a 9-3 all-time head-to-head record over Shuster, according to CurlingZone. However, Canada has lost three straight games now and will have to pick up the mood and take on a loose American team. It looked like the United States was out of it early down to a record of 2-3, but turned the script around and got 3-1 in the back half of the round-robin game to qualify. Canada lost to Switzerland in the bronze medal match four years ago but the only remaining squad is Marc Kennedy, who threw third for Kevin Koe and is Gushue’s deputy this time.
Great Britain is listed as an early favorite against Sweden at -154 chalk. Mouat beat Edin 7-6 during the round robin section. Edin (+120 underdog) took bronze in 2014 and silver in 2018 and seems determined to take the final step to the top of the podium.
Fourth end: Quite nice that Eriksson will be the first double medal winner in curling at a single Winter Olympics. Eriksson took bronze in mixed doubles with Almida de Val and is now guaranteed either gold or silver in the men’s tournament. Eriksson and de Val defeated Mouat and Jennifer Dodds in the bronze medal game. So much for fatigue playing back-to-back tournaments, huh?
Fifth end: Canada’s Jennifer Jones defeated Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont 10-4 in the final round of the women’s round robin, but the victory was not enough to qualify for the medal round. Jones finished in a three-way tie with Britain’s Eve Muirhead and Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa for the final two places in the semifinals with identical 5-4 records. Head-to-head solved nothing because they all had 1-1 against each other, so it came to the draw challenge, based on the shootout results before the match to decide who starts with the hammer. Great Britain (35.27 cm on average, eight in total) and Japan (36.00 cm on average, ninth in total) went on while Canada (45.44 cm on average, 10th in total) was knocked out.
Canada’s draw shot challenge was bad all week and not just in the women’s game with Rachel Homans and John Morris mixed doubles team which also finished last and Gushue ranked sixth out of 10 men’s teams. Whether it’s something Canadian law does not practice enough or something else should be investigated.
Sixth end: Although the draw challenge is the official reason Canada was eliminated, the team also lost in a shocking outrage to host China in a match where they were the favorite. Canada was behind early, came back and held the hammer in the extra end but gave up a steal. Credit to China and that they had played the role of spoiler during the week with wins over Sweden, South Korea and the UK.
Canada’s other three losses were against teams that qualified: Sweden, Switzerland and Japan. Sweden is the defending Olympic gold medalist with Japan earning bronze in 2018 while Switzerland is a two-time reigning world champion. All of these events mentioned caused Canada to miss the podium and were also completely different Canadian teams. The parity on the international stage in curling for women is greatest when you also think of South Korea (Olympic silver medals 2018), USA (World Bronze Medals 2021) and ROC (World Silver Medals 2021) were also present and also missed the medal round.
Seventh end: You can not blame Curling Canada for sending the “wrong” women’s team or not sending the “best” women’s team. Jones just won the Olympic trial tournament in November. In addition, there is no guarantee that another team would have done better or worse. Just as with mixed doubles, where Canada lost to Italy by just a millimeter on one measure, we are now talking about an average of 10 centimeters or less with Jones eliminated on bad luck in the draw.
Eighth end: Switzerland meets Japan and Sweden meets Great Britain in the women’s semifinals. Silvana Tirinzoni (8-1) finished first with only one loss against Anna Hasselborg and enters the semifinals as -286 favorite. Tirinzoni just doubled Satsuki Fujisawa 8-4 in the most recent round-robin session with an 11-2 all-time head-to-head record according to CurlingZone.
Hasselborg (7-2) is the favorite over Muirhead at -143 chalk. It is an even 19-19 on an all-time head-to-head record for Hasselborg and Muirhead, according to CurlingZone, even though Muirhead has won its last three meetings including an 8-2 rout in round-robin. Sweden, which started this week with 2-2, has now won five straight games.
All odds with permission from Coolbet.