Easy way? No thanks

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. -- Canada's Heather Nedohin will have to take the long road in order to give her country a first gold medal at the Ford World Women's Curling Championship since 2008.

Nedohin's Edmonton team capped a miserable final day of round-robin play at the Enmax Centre with a humbling 9-3 loss to Scotland's Eve Muirhead and will play red-hot Allison Pottinger in a fourth-place tiebreaker this afternoon, with the winner playing South Korea's Ji-Sun Kim in the Page playoff three-four game on Saturday.

While Canada limps into that game, having also lost to Italy's Diana Gaspari 6-5 in the morning draw -- the first time the Italians have beaten Canada at the world women's championship after 14 losses -- the U.S. carries a seven-game win streak into today.

The Americans lost their first four here but capped their brilliant round-robin streak with a pair of wins on Thursday, 6-5 over Sweden's Margaretha Sigfridsson and 8-5 over Denmark's Lene Nielsen.

On Friday night, Sigfridsson will play Switzerland's Mirjam Ott in the Page one-two game. The winner will go straight to Sunday's final, while the loser will play the winner of the Page three-four game in the semifinal Saturday.

Unlike Canada's brilliance in the late stages of the round robin at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Red Deer, Alta., Nedohin, third Beth Iskiw, second Jessica Mair and lead Laine Peters were strangely subdued when it counted most in Lethbridge.

Against Italy, Canada gave up a pair of crucial steals against a skip who ranked last in shooting percentage prior to the game.

Then, against a Scottish team that has been one of the most disappointing here based on pre-event hype, the Canadians surrendered a deuce in the third end, and then gift-wrapped two more in the fourth end when Nedohin was heavy with her last-rock draw.

Canada came back with two in the fifth, but Muirhead delivered the knockout punch in the seventh end when she made an angle-raise takeout to score three.

After the loss to Italy, Nedohin said the prospect of playing with her back to the wall wasn't a concern.

"We're used to the C event," said Nedohin, whose team posted the same 7-4 record en route to the Canadian title.

"If that's where we end up? Honestly, I always celebrate the victory of making the playoffs after the round robin. To me, from there it's a whole new tournament."

And, added Iskiw, no one should read too much into Thursday's results as Canada prepares for its assignment today.

"We have a lot of faith and trust in our abilities and our teamwork, for sure," said Iskiw after the loss to Italy. "We're pretty determined. That was just a little blip on the radar. I think we have enough fire under us, for sure. Going forward, we want to take advantage when we get the chances and really put it to the other teams."

It was an emotional Kim who came off the ice following the win over the Russians. South Korea had just five wins in three previous trips to the world women's championship, but this team, which has trained extensively in Calgary, has been splendid here.

"It's very exciting. Unbelievable," said Kim.

"It's very difficult to make the playoffs, so Korea can see now that our team is very good."

The Swedes have been among the most consistent teams here, and after playing a couple fairly conservative games, including the loss to the U.S. in the morning, Sigfridsson (who throws lead rocks while Maria Prytz throws the hammer) went all out on offence against Denmark.

"It feels really good and now we should just reload for the playoffs," she said. "We played well all through the season, and I think that we're very happy to be able to handle the situation at the worlds. We needed to play well and I think we've done that so far."

-- Postmedia News

At at glance

Round-robin Standings

Country (Skip)WL

x-Sweden (Sigfridsson)83

x-Switzerland (Ott)83

x-South Korea (JS.Kim)83

y-Canada (Nedohin)74

y-U.S. (Pottinger)74

Scotland (Muirhead)65

Germany (A.Schopp)56

Denmark (Nielsen)56

Russia (A.Sidorova)47

Italy (Gaspari)38

China (B.Wang)38

Czech Rep. (Klimova)29

x - clinched playoff berth; y-tiebreaker berth

Thursday Results

Draw 15

Italy 6 Canada 5

China 11 Czech Republic 6

Switzerland 6 South Korea 5

U.S. 6 Sweden 5 (extra end)

Draw 16

Germany 6 Czech Republic 5

Sweden 7 Denmark 2

South Korea 7 Russia 3

Scotland 9 Italy 8 (extra end)

Draw 17

Switzerland 6 Russia 4

Scotland 9 Canada 3

Germany 6 China 5

U.S. 8 Denmark 5

End of round robin

PLAYOFFS

Today's Games

Tiebreaker

Canada vs. U.S., 10 a.m.

Page Playoffs

One-Two Game

Sweden vs. Switzerland, 8 p.m.

Saturday Games

Page Playoffs

South Korea vs. Tiebreaker winner, 2 p.m.

Semifinal

One-Two loser vs. Three-Four winner, 7 p.m.

Sunday Games

Third Place

Semifinal loser vs. Three-Four loser, 7 p.m.

Championship

One-Two winner vs. semifinal winner, 5:30 p.m.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 23, 2012 C3