Strong Wednesday is key for Korey
Curling’s traditional powers are returning to form at the world men’s championship in Las Vegas.
Consecutive wins by Scotland’s Ross Paterson and Sweden’s Niklas Edin have their teams in second place at 5-2, behind Canada’s Brad Gushue who leads with a spotless 6-0 record.
The Olympic champion Swedes thumped Germany 7-2 while the Scots upended Finland by a 10-5 count.
The Scotland-Finland tilt experienced a delay as repairs were carried out to the damaged ice surface on their sheet.
The Swiss foursome skipped by Yannick Schwaller are also on the rise, and sits in sole possession of third place at 4-2.
Steve Seixeiro-WCFGushue’s team overcame another slow start to defeat Germany 11-7.
“That felt like a morning game where we didn’t wake up for a few ends,” said the two-time Olympic medallist skip. “We were fortunate to be only down by four. But we kept fighting and got a couple of misses out of them. I’m happy with 6-0, but we need a little bit more consistency.”
Meanwhile, the Koreans defeated Czech Republic 10-4 to stay in a three-way tie for fourth place at 3-3, tied with Italy and the host United States.
“We’ve only played half of our round-robin games and I think we’ve only shown about 60 per cent of what we’ve prepared,” said veteran skip Kim Soo-Hyuk.
“This is a big venue, and this is a big competition. For some of our players it’s a first time at this level, so we just need to adapt to the environment and hopefully improve more in our later games.”
Alina Pavlyuchik-WCFFinland, Germany and Norway are now at 3-4 and still in the mix for now, given that six teams advance to the playoffs.
Netherlands are now 1-5, tied with Denmark, after beating Italy—who scored a five-ender—by a wild 11-9 scoreline.
“(The first win) feels pretty good,” said Dutch fourth Wouter Goesgens. “Happy with the fight, my team kept faith and it paid off this time so that’s great. First we gave away a five—that’s painful—but we knew we were throwing well so we just kept it going and stole three.”
A strong Wednesday is key for Korey Dropkin’s U.S. representatives. They face Netherlands and Switzerland in advance of a killer Thursday, when they will challenge Canada and Sweden.