Don’t blink—or you might miss it
If you blinked—or went to the fridge to grab a snack—you missed it.
Instead of a 4-3 score favouring Scotland, Canada was suddenly in a 6-3 lead.
Bruce Mouat of Scotland threw light on a routine draw in the sixth end and Canada’s Brad Gushue stole a huge three-ender en route to a 9-4 semifinal win at the world championship.
Perhaps it’s never routine when drawing against four enemy counters, but Mouat’s miss was still widely unexpected.
Scotland and Canada had traded deuces in the first two ends and then Mouat’s men, the defending champions, stole the fourth end for a 3-2 lead.
When Gushue’s Canadians could only muster a single in the fifth end, it was advantage Scotland.
That all came crashing down in the pivotal sixth end. Strong Canadian shooting left the Scots with a draw to the full eight-foot rings, and brushers Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan Jr. thought Mouat’s throw was “close” on release.
The front-enders, however, could only pound their Scottish stone just shy of the eight foot—almost giving up a steal of four.
In the seventh end, Mouat faced another draw, this time facing three Canadian counters, and made it to trail 6-4 without hammer.
Another three in the eighth was enough for the deflated Scots, who promptly conceded the match.
In the other semifinal, Italy and Sweden hung tight up to the seventh end, where Sweden’s Niklas Edin grabbed a three-count to jump into a 5-1 lead over Joel Retornaz’s crew.
An Italian steal in the ninth end made it interesting, but Sweden still advanced with the 5-3 victory.
Italy and Scotland had won their respective playoff matches on Thursday morning.
Edin and Gushue will battle for the world men’s championship gold Sunday at 3:00 p.m. in Switzerland (9:00 a.m. ET) while Scotland and Italy challenge for bronze at 4:00 a.m. ET.
Earlier in the week, Edin defeated Gushue 6-5 in the round robin. The Canadian skip currently holds a career 27-17 won/loss record against Edin, who holds a 9-6 won/loss advantage over Gushue since the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
Gushue and Co. came up well short in last year’s world final, a 9-3 loss to Scotland’s Mouat.
Retornaz, skip of the No. 1 world ranked team heading into Schaffhausen, will be looking to return to the winner’s podium since he scored bronze in 2022. The Italians were walloped 11-3 in last year’s bronze medal game by Switzerland.