Silver for Team Gushue at World Men’s Curling Championship
Team Gushue came up just short of repeating as world men’s curling champions, instead settling for silver.
The Newfoundland-based foursome of skip Brad Gushue, third Mark Nichols, second Brett Gallant and lead Geoff Walker ran into a dialed-in Team Sweden on Sunday night, dropping a 7-3 decision in eight ends.
For Swedish skip Niklas Edin, it is his third world title, adding to the ones he captured in 2013 and 2015. It also gives him some payback on Gushue, who beat him for the gold medal at last year’s world championships.
Sweden had the hammer to start the final in Las Vegas. After the first two ends were blanked, Edin gave an indication of what would come throughout the match as he made a nice shot with his final stone to score two in the third.
Having finally gotten the hammer, the Canadians set themselves up well in the fourth end. But Edin made an amazing shot to get rid of the two red stones sitting in the four-foot. Forced to draw for a single, Gushue came up light, giving up a steal of two instead.
Gushue gave up another steal in the fifth when his runback double takeout for two didn’t curl enough. They went into the break down 5-0.
And unfortunately for Gushue, his Swedish counterpart continued to curl brilliantly. Edin made two impressive takeouts in the sixth end to leave nothing for Gushue but a nose hit for a single point. Edin ended the game curling 97% on takeouts.
Back with the hammer in the seventh, Edin scored two more on an easy open hit to take a 7-1 lead. Team Gushue managed to score two points in the eighth to make it 7-3 before they shook hands to end the game.
Earlier in the day, Scotland defeated South Korea 11-4 to win the bronze medal.
