Playoff Puzzles at Vegas Curling Worlds

Canada and Sweden have locked up playoff berths at the 2022 world men’s curling championship in Las Vegas, NV.

Niklas Edin’s Olympic champions won twice, over Scotland and hosts USA, to trail Canada’s Brad Gushue at 8-3 in the standings. Gushue’s Olympic bronze medallists are 8-2 with a game in hand, after losing their first Thursday match to USA and walloping Korea 10-2 to be the first to reach the semifinals.

“First or second spot gets you one step closer to the championship, and it also gives you a bit of rest,” said Gushue. “With what our team has been through over the last six months or so, well, a draw off is not going to hurt us.”

It was a huge four-ender in the fifth end that put Korey Dropkin’s Americans ahead of their North American rivals. Dropkin ended up winning 10-6.

“It was a discouraging loss earlier, but the US just really out-curled us,” said Gushue. “So, to come back and play the way we did (against Korea), especially the first end—we played eight great shots and got a three on the board—was good. We got fortunate in the second end and got a steal of three and from then on it was in our hands.”

Italy won both their Thursday matches to sit tied with USA, Scotland and Switzerland at 6-4 in the standings.

The Italians logged a “W” over Switzerland’s “L” when the Swiss ran out of time on their time clock. Under World Curling Federation rules, this time violation results in an immediate forfeit.

Swiss skip Yannick Schwaller was down 5-3 playing the 10th end and had virtually no chance to tie the game when his team’s time clock expired.

Italy then defeated Czech Republic 6-5 despite playing the 10th end with only three players.

After the ninth end Italy lead Simone Gonin smashed his brush into the ice in frustration. His brush head popped off on impact and flew across the adjacent sheet, landing in front of USA’s Korey Dropkin who was delivering a key final draw against three Swedish counters in their ninth end.

As a result, the head umpire ejected Gonin from the match and Italy finished the game with three players.

Germany, Korea and Norway are all 5-5 and need to pull some of the 6-4 teams back on Friday’s final day of round-robin play (top six make the playoffs).