Gushue Unfazed by Vegas Worlds Loss

Canada’s Brad Gushue lost to Sweden’s Niklas Edin at the worlds in Las Vegas, but hung on to first place in the round robin after a win over Finland.

The killer blow in the Canada-Sweden tilt was a missed draw for two by Gushue in the ninth end, which only tied the score at 5-5. The Olympic champions then scored two in the 10th end for the 7-5 victory.

“It was fun to play, definitely,” said Edin, who defeated Gushue twice at Beijing’s Olympic Winter Games in February. “It was back-and-forth, we made some good shots, some bad shots and there were opportunities both ways.

“It was a really fun game to play, tight on time too, so it made it really interesting I think, but a really good win for us.”

“There were a couple ends where we were in a bit of heat there, so we’re not firing on all cylinders yet,” said Gushue. “But certainly I thought that was our best 10 ends of curling. We still have a ways to go; we’re not quite where we want to be.”

The Canadians were rarely troubled by Finland in the night draw—winning 8-3—although the Finnish strategy kept Gushue on his toes.

“They play an interesting style which caught me off guard a couple of times and made it challenging for us,” said Gushue. “So very smart of them.

“We try to play it simple and leave ourselves a shot. If we score two and threes, then that’s a bonus.”

Gushue and third Mark Nichols won their 2006 Olympic gold medal over the current Finnish back end of Kalle Kiiskinen and Teemu Salo, who played front end for Markku Uusipaavalniemi back in the day.

Sweden’s Edin lost his second Wednesday match to Korea by a 7-5 count, putting Sweden in third place at 6-3. Canada still leads the show at 7-1, while Scotland—who had no trouble with the Czech Republic—own second place at 6-2.

The Koreans also beat Italy 10-5 on Wednesday, which vaults them into the surprise category at 5-3.

USA and Switzerland are also at 5-3, after Korey Dropkin’s U.S. representatives won both their Wednesday matches,

which included a 7-4 victory over the Swiss.

Germany split their games, beating Denmark 10-7 but losing 11-8 to Italy.

Italy and Norway are 4-4 while Germany is 4-5.