“We gave up so many opportunities”

Things are getting a bit wild at the Ice Cube curling venue at the Olympic Winter Games.

Sweden’s men’s team, class of the field thus far and first to claim a semifinal berth, fell to 7-1 after a 7-6 loss to Great Britain (6-1). One wonders if Bruce Mouat now owns some real estate in Niklas Edin’s head; The Swedes defeated the Scots for another world at last year’s Calgary bubble, but Mouat has been on a steady march of key victories ever since.

“It was a totally different surface today,” said the veteran Edin, who won Olympic bronze in 2014 and silver in 2018. “It was a lot warmer and we didn’t adapt quick enough.

“We got a bad start and we couldn’t really catch up. They played really well. Once you get down two or three points to this team it’s really tough to come back.

“(It was) an important learning curve going through this game. Our first loss, it can happen. The important thing is that we bounce back now.”

Canada’s Brad Gushue is 5-3 after losing 7-6 in an extra-end to a red-hot Sergei Glukhov of ROC (4-4). His next match is against Great Britain.

“It's a disappointing game,” said Gushue, the 2006 Olympic champion. “We gave up so many opportunities.

“We could have scored two or three a number of times in the first five or six ends and then we seemed to give it away every single time.

“Sergei made a bunch of good shots to kind of take those away from us once we gave him the opportunity. So credit to him, he played well.”

“We are so excited to win such an important game against a big team,” said Glukhov. “We played fantastic today.

“We just tried to do the same things every day, to keep our routine and positive thinking.”

John Shuster’s USA is 4-4 after getting thumped by 2-5 Italy. This came after a gritty 7-4 victory over Switzerland (3-4) where they stole the eighth and ninth ends to put away a previously tight game.

China and Norway are at 3-5, with Denmark at 1-6.

On the women’s side, Switzerland (6-1) took out the USA by a 9-6 margin. The Americans, now 4-3, took a 6-4 lead in the eighth end but dropped a stunning four points in the ninth.

"That’s kind of a crappy feeling,” said USA skip Tabitha Peterson. But you’ve got to dump it and look forward because we’ve got two games ahead of us.

“We’ll talk about it because if there was some sort of strategical error we don’t want to make that again. But then we’re going to just move forward and focus on tomorrow.”

The Swiss had previously lost their first match of the tournament to Sweden by a 6-5 count. Sweden sits in second place at 5-2 behind Great Britain, Japan and USA (all 4-3).

Canada are 3-3 following their super Tuesday, tied with Korea. China and Denmark are both 2-5, while ROC won their first game over China 1—5 to move to 1-6.

Silvana Tirinzoni’s Swiss team became emotional after their come-from-behind win over USA.

“It’s so intense out there,” Tirinzoni said. “If we had won like 7-1, probably we wouldn't have cried, but this game was a tough one. And right now it looks like we could be qualified.”

The Swiss face Korea and Japan to conclude their round robin. A victory in either game will secure a playoff spot.

“Asian teams are normally very aggressive,” Tirinzoni said. “They like to draw. So if you’re going to beat them, you have to be very careful. Usually we have great, interesting games against Japan, especially.”