Two titans of world men’s curling will meet Saturday in the world men’s championship playoffs—a day earlier than hoped—and only one will survive.
There are actually four giants, to be sure, but that is the marquee matchup for the fired-up spectators at Ottawa’s TD Place
Both Canada’s Brad Gushue, the home team, and Sweden’s Niklas Edin—the pre-event favourite—will battle in one of two playoff qualification matches. The winner will move on to Saturday night’s semifinal round, and the loser will be eliminated.
Sweden and Canada both finished the round robin at 9-3, but that was only good enough for third and fourth place overall.
Switzerland’s impressive Yannick Schwaller finished in first place at 11-1 and received a direct spot in the semifinals. Scotland’s powerful Bruce Mouat foursome (10-2) placed second, and grabbed the other semifinal berth.
Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell (10-2) and Italy’s Joel Retornaz (8-4) will play in the second qualification game. The winner of Canada and Sweden will face Switzerland, and the winner of Norway versus Italy will battle Scotland.
Both medal games take place on Sunday April 9, with the bronze medal game beginning at 11:00 a.m. and the gold medal game at 4:00 p.m. (all times eastern).
Gushue scored an 8-5 win over Edin as the round robin concluded on a packed and noisy Friday night.
The Canadians held Edin to a single in the fourth end for a 3-1 Swedish lead, whereupon Gushue made a sharp-angled raise into the four-foot to kill Sweden’s shot stone to score four huge points.
The Canadians added another three-count in the seventh end to seal the deal.
Edin shrugged off the loss.
“Two losses. Not the end of the world,” Edin said of his team’s winless Friday. “We’re in the playoffs and have to regroup a little bit.”
“We made some really big shots, placed some rocks in key spots,” said Gushue. “We went 9-3 in a good field and we have hammer (Saturday) which is a bonus, so we’ll see what happens.”
Gushue likes his chances in the rematch with Edin.
“I think any team knows that if we’re playing our game we’re going to be tough to beat,” he said. “Hopefully, we’re saving it up for the weekend.”
Canada has the momentum, but Sweden has the superior resume.
In four world championship appearances, Gushue and teammates Mark Nichols and Geoff Walker have made three finals and captured one title—over Edin, in 2017.
New second E.J. Harnden has a world silver medal from his time with skip Brad Jacobs, plus Olympic gold from 2014, where Edin scored bronze.
The Swedes have swept all the world gold since 2017. Edin, Oskar Eriksson, Rasmus Wrana and Christoffer Sundgren have won the last four titles in a row, while Edin has taken six of the seven finals he’s contested since 2013.
Team Edin has won eight of their last 11 matchups with Team Gushue since Beijing 2022, where the Swedes defeated the Canadians twice en route to Swedish gold medals and Canadian bronze.
That also includes the final of last year’s “tricky” world championship in Las Vegas.
Edin made a “super-spinner” shot on Wednesday in Ottawa that still has the sports world talking.
He tried another to finish his loss against Canada—and while the result fell short, the effort was still impressive.
The top six teams in the 13-team field advanced to the playoff rounds. Japan and United States led the bottom six teams with 5-7 won/loss records, while Germany finished 4-8.
The Czech Republic wound up at 3-9, while an enthused Türkiye contingent scored with two victories in their debut World men’s appearance.
Korea and New Zealand—also making their rookie appearance—both finished 1-11.