Wild Curling, Retirements into Final Day of World Men’s Championship

A wild Friday sets up a superb Saturday of curling history as the 67th world men’s curling championship wraps up in the western United States.

Canada skip Matt Dunstone, a world men’s rookie, will battle seven-time world champion Sweden skip Niklas Edin in the championship final at the Weber County Ice Sheet in Ogden, UT.

Canada (12-2) has now won 10 games in a row, and thrashed Sweden (12-2) earlier in the round robin.

Team USA men’s fours veteran skip John Shuster (9-5) is first up, however, in a morning bronze-medal match against Scotland rookie men’s worlds skip Ross Whyte (11-3).

Four retirements – that we know of – will take place with the completion of today’s games.

USA’s Colin Hufman and Chris Plys, and Canada’s E.J. Harnden previously announced their departure from high-performance curling following this season.

Earlier this week, veteran Canadian curling television play-by-play announcer Vic Rauter also announced his retirement.

Friday night’s semifinals provided drama on both sheets of ice in play.

Canada had lost emphatically to Scotland in the round robin. In the seventh end, two terrific shots from Canada third Colton Lott – a double takeout followed by a hit-and-roll to sit frozen – suddenly had the Scots on the run. Facing four, Whyte could only remove two Canadian stones with his last shot, setting the stage for Dunstone to draw for three to give Canada its first lead.

“I don’t even remember how that happened,” Dunstone told Curling Canada. “I kind of blacked out for the last half of the game, but yeah, we had them coming and going – Colt made an unbelievable hit and it froze into them, and they were in the grease after that.”

The final end saw Canada up one without last stone, and two key Canada shots – from Lott and Dunstone – were critical in leaving few options for Whyte on his last stone of the match. 

The final score was 9-7 for Canada.

In the other semifinal, Shuster stole the 10th end to tie the match 6-6, but Edin scored his single in the extra end to win 7-6.

Both USA and Canada escaped with wins in Friday’s qualifier (quarterfinal) round.

USA was up against it in facing the young Swiss team skipped by Marco Hoesli (9-4) – and had to steal two in the eighth and as well as a single in the 11th end to win 9-8.

Canada squared off against Italy’s even younger Stefano Spiller (8-5) in their qualifier. 

Italy was up 4-2 on Dunstone. Canada took two, promptly dropped two and then took another pair to tie the game at 6-6 after eight ends.

In the ninth, Canada lead Ryan Harnden slipped into the rings, changing the complexion of the end. Desperate to hold Italy — the Canadians had dropped three in their previous two ninth ends — a critical draw-tap from Dunstone left Spiller a difficult down-weight runback for two, and Italy scored just one for a 7-6 lead.

In the 10th end, a superb first draw from Spiller outcounted a Colton Lott runback and Italy lay one behind a mess of stones. Dunstone attempted a freeze, looking for a runback to win on his final stone, and came heavy.

With a chance to lock his winning steal, Spiller came heavy on his final stone and opened things up for a simple Canada double; Dunstone scored three for the 9-7 win.

Dunstone is aiming to become the first rookie skip to win the world men’s championship since Brad Gushue in 2017.

China finished 6-6, Japan 5-7, Germany 4-8, Korea and Czechia 3-9, Poland 2-10 in their first appearance and Norway 0-12.

Next season’s world men’s and women’s fours championships will change format, with a whopping 18 teams competing, up from 13 member nations.