SCHAFFHAUSEN, SWITZERLAND — Patience is a virtue and precisely what Canadian skip Brad Gushue needed on Wednesday morning at the 2024 LGT World Men’s Curling Championship, presented by New Holland. When the opportunity arose, he seized it.
Team Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., earned a 7-4 victory over Team Wouter Goesgens of the Netherlands (2-5) and improved to 6-1 to maintain its hold on second place in the standings.
Gushue, vice-skip Mark Nichols, second E.J. Harnden, lead Geoff Walker, alternate Kyle Doering, coach Caleb Flaxey, and national coach Jeff Stoughton had to be composed during the game at IWC Arena. The Canadians outplayed the Dutch at every position, but it wasn’t showcased on the scoreboard for most of the game.
“It’s a massive key. This is a long week and it’s going to be gruelling so you don’t want to make it any more difficult than it has to be. That was a perfect example of patience today,” Harnden said. “Not having to push the envelope because it wasn’t needed and it probably saved the sweeping and stress level a little bit.”
Canada broke through late in the game thanks to a skip’s deuce from Gushue in the eighth end. The Canadians made a runback to sit one, followed by a tap with the last stone to take the two and a three-point lead late in the game. In the ninth, Team Gushue made a double, avoiding the jam and sticking the shooter in the house to force the Netherlands to one. The Netherlands did its best to score a pair in the 10th, but Canada tacked on another point.
Regarding the start, Canada couldn’t have asked for a better one. Team Gushue scored a routine deuce with the last stone and stole a single in the second after the Netherlands missed its last-rock double. The Netherlands were forced to a single in the third, but after a blanked fourth end, the team stole a point in the fifth. Goesgens played a perfect draw to the pin, which Canada couldn’t remove on the thinnest of pick shots.
“It was more so the strategy that we took. Once we got that three-point lead, it was about not making any stupid mistakes or taking on more risk than we needed to. I think we did in the fifth end, and we got burned a little bit. We took a chance, and they got a steal. But I think once we got up three, and knowing full well the ice conditions were going to get tougher, it was about keeping it simple and making their shots tough,” Gushue said.
In other action, Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin (7-0) maintained its one-game buffer on Canada with a 7-5 win over Italy’s Team Joel Retornaz (4-3), Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller (5-2) earned a 8-3 win against New Zealand’s Anton Hood (0-7) and Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat (5-2) overcame Czechia’s Team Lukas Klima (3-5) by a score of 6-3.
Canada is back on the ice tonight in Switzerland against winless South Korea’s Team Jongduk Park (0-7) at 1 p.m. ET.
“They’re a better team than their record. They played Switzerland last night and probably could have beat them, maybe even should have beat them. They beat us at the Pan Continental, so I know that they can play. But we just have to play a solid game, that’s going to be the key,” Gushue said.
After the round-robin wraps up Friday evening, the third through sixth-ranked teams compete in playoff qualification games (3 vs. 6; 4 vs. 5), with the winners advancing to the semifinals. The semifinal winners play in the gold-medal game, and the losers play for the bronze.
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TSN/RDS, the official broadcast partner of Curling Canada’s Season of Champions, will provide live coverage of Canada’s round robin and all playoff games. Click here for the broadcast schedule.
Non-Canadian round-robin games are available through World Curling’s streaming platform, The Curling Channel.
