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Canada to take on Olympic medallists at world men’s curling championship
Updated at 22:56 on April 5, 2006, EST.
LOWELL, Mass. (CP) – Canada’s road to the playoffs at the world men’s curling championship has to go through the marquee names in the field Thursday.
Jean-Michel Menard’s team from Quebec City faces Olympic silver medallist Finland on Thursday afternoon and bronze medallist U.S. in the final draw of the round robin at night. The top four teams advance to Friday’s Page playoff. Ties for fourth will be resolved by tiebreakers Friday morning.
Pete Fenson’s team from the U.S. and Scotland’s David Murdoch led the field at 7-2 followed by Canada at 6-3 and a logjam at 5-4 including Norway, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland.
Two victories and Canada can finish second in the standings. One win will be enough to reach either the playoffs or at least a tiebreaker Friday.
Two losses and the Canadians would also need other countries to falter Thursday in order to remain in contention.
“We’ve got two big games against two teams that were on the podium at the Olympics so we’ll have our work cut out for us, but we’re looking forward to it,” Menard said.
In Friday’s Page playoff, the winner of the game between the top two seeds advances to Sunday’s final while the loser drops down to play in Saturday’s semifinal against the winner of a sudden-death playoff game between the third and fourth playoff seeds.
The higher-seeded playoff teams also start their games with last-rock advantage.
The Canadian team, including third Francois Roberge, Eric Sylvain and Maxime Elmaleh, lost 10-9 to Switzerland’s Ralph Stockli on Wednesday to end a five-game winning streak after a 7-4 win over Japan’s Yoshiyuki Ohmiya earlier in the day.
Menard’s final shot of the sixth end against Switzerland was a draw and it didn’t even make the hog-line as Canada gave up a steal of two to trail 7-5.
“It probably picked up something or hit a flat spot because there was no way this rock was thrown only halfway down,” Menard said. “That was the turning point.”
After Canada managed only one point in the seventh with last-rock advantage, Switzerland scored a pair in the eighth to lead 9-6.
Canada took advantage of a couple of mistakes by Stockli to get three points back and go into the 10th tied, but was without last-rock advantage.
The Swiss peeled Canada’s guards to keep the front of the house clear and Stockli drew the eight-foot rings against two Canadian stones for the win.
The Australians did the Canadians and the Scots a favour Wednesday by stealing a point in the 10th end to upset the Americans 5-4 and pull them back to the pack.
Menard’s team has played Fenson once before and beaten him in a cashspiel in Utica, N.Y. in 2004.
Finland started the tournament 1-2 and without big-throwing skip Markku Uusipaavalniemi because of a wrist injury he suffered two weeks prior to the world championship. Uusipaavalniemi’s team lost in the Olympic final to Canada’s Brad Gushue on Feb. 24.
Finland began winning at the world championship once skip Uusipaavalniemi (pronounced OO’-see-pah-vohl-NAY’-me) returned to the lineup wearing a brace on his wrist, although he has been throwing third stones, not fourth stones.
Canada and Finland haven’t played on sheets beside each other at the Paul E. Tsongas Arena so Menard hasn’t been able to see if Uuspaavalniemi is throwing the kind of accurate big-weight shots he did at the Olympics.
“He’s always been a good hitter and even if he doesn’t throw as hard as he used to, he’s very precise,” Menard said. “You just have to hit the rock in a good place and it will move, eh?”
Australia was lightly regarded coming into this tournament but has beaten both Canada and the U.S., who are both contenders for the world title.
“Time to invade Europe,” skip Hugh Milliken cracked.
Canada was in control of the game against Japan from the outset.
Japan, coached by Vancouver’s Wayne Matthewson, has a young second and lead making their international debut and they were unable to match the level of play of Canadian front end Sylvain and Elmaleh.
As a result, Ohmiya was faced with difficult shots and didn’t have the opportunity to score more than one point in an end. Japan was often scrambling to prevent Canada to get two.
Canada led 7-2 after eight ends and alternate Jean Gagnon went into the game at that point for Elmaleh.
Curling is still a developing sport in Japan and the challenge curlers face there is lack of facilities, with about 14 curling clubs – or curling halls as they are called – in the whole country.
Teams also have to travel so far to get elite-level international competition that raises the country’s calibre of curling domestically.
“That’s one of their biggest stumbling blocks in getting to understand the technical part of the game,” Matthewson said. “You’ve got to get to the level of competition that demands the best out of you and see new strategies that develop.”
The Canadian Press, 2006
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