Not a bang, but a whimper

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This article was published 08/04/2011 (5491 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — They had a pizza delivered to them on-ice before the start of the game, courtesy of their Norway opponents.

Then the Team Canada coaches, team leader and alternate, who had made life-sized cardboard cutouts of themselves for reasons known only to them, spent the better part of the third and fourth ends causing a disruption in the stands as they set them up for a skit for TSN.

Then those same coaches and support people, plus the four Canada players on the ice, spent the 10th end celebrating — during the end, a tied end, with major playoff implications — when their 50-50 raffle number got called and they learned they had collectively just won $18,840, split nine ways.

And in between it all, there were conversations with fans in the crowd and general on-ice clowning around.

Team Canada, in other words, was quite busy with a lot of things during their game against Norway on the final round-robin draw. A lot of things that had nothing to do with curling.

And the result was a Canada team that had vowed to not let up this week, had vowed to not lose their focus, had vowed not to lose their intensity and had vowed not to forget the hard lessons of doing all that prior to a loss in the world final of 1999 did exactly all of those things once again Thursday night.

And they did so with a predictable result — they gift-wrapped a 7-6 win for Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud when Stoughton, who has been so single-minded here all week, lost his focus and sailed a game-winning draw to the four-foot into the back eight-foot instead.

The loss meant nothing to Stoughton in the standings. He’d clinched first place on Wednesday and already knew that he would be playing Scotland’s Tommy Brewster (9-2) here tonight in the Page playoff 1 vs 2 game, after Scotland had clinched second place on the morning draw.

But make no mistake, the loss to Norway meant something, alright.

It meant, for starters, the end of a 10-game winning streak for Stoughton here at the worlds — including a 5-4 win over China earlier on Thursday, Stoughton finished the round robin at 10-1. It also means that Stoughton will now head into that critical matchup with Scotland tonight — the winner advances straight to Sunday’s 2011 World Men’s Curling Championship final — off a loss.

But more than anything it means that Ulsrud — the 2010 Olympic silver medallist and 2010 world runner-up — is still alive in this bonspiel today.

A loss by Norway to Canada would have eliminated Ulsrud last night. Instead, he finished at 7-4 and will now play France’s Thomas Dufour, who also finished at 7-4, in a playoff tiebreaker game this afternoon.

 

The winner of that game will then go on to play Sweden’s Niklas Edin (7-4) in Saturday’s Page playoff 3 vs. 4 game.

The winner of the 3 vs 4 game will face the loser of tonight’s Canada-Scotland matchup in Saturday evening’s semi-final.

Stoughton tried to do damage control after the Norway loss. “It’s not going to matter now. (Today) is the big day. We win the 1-2 game, that’s all we care about… We couldn’t be in a better position….No concerns, no worries.”

But Stoughton also admitted there were distractions and the team had lost focus, especially in the 10th end. “We were more excited we’d won the 50-50 draw,” said Stoughton. “I think the guys didn’t know that I knew because I’d whipped out to the bathroom. But I came back and (second) Reid (Carruthers) tells me, (lead) Steve (Gould) is telling me, (third) Jon (Mead) is telling me. So yeah, it was quite exciting.”

Canada made short work of the Scots when they played them Tuesday night in the round-robin, owning them from the outset en route to a 7-3 win that was even more lopsided than the final score suggested.

It was a trial by fire, before a packed Canadian house, for a wide-eyed Scottish team with no previous experience to draw on.

While Brewster has been around the competitive curling circuit for the better part of 20 years, he’s making his Worlds debut this week. And he’s the experienced one on a team with three youngsters who were still curling juniors as recently as a year ago.

“I’m not stupid — I know we played above expectations this week,” said the 36-year-old. “It’s fantastic. I’ve got three 22-year-olds and it’s my first time skipping and we’re in the 1-2 (game).

“Can’t wait. That’s what it’s all about — full house, Canada. I play this game to play the best teams — that’s it. And they’re one of the best teams in the world. We’ll go out there and give it our all.”

So too, hopefully, will a chastened Team Canada.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca