Perfect start for Koe and his crew

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This article was published 04/04/2010 (5900 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kevin KOE’S Team Canada rink got off to the start it was looking for in its first opportunity to represent the country in a major event.

Koe and his Edmonton rinkmates — third Blake MacDonald, second Carter Rycroft and lead Nolan Thiessen — opened up the 2010 Capital One men’s world curling championship with a 6-3 win over the United States’s Pete Fenson in Saturday’s second draw.

Canada used a deuce in the eighth end and a steal of one in the ninth to break open a 3-3 game. Koe then ended it with a double-kill with his first stone of the 10th end to run Fenson out of rocks at the Olympic Ice Stadium in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

“I think probably half the fans were from Canada, so that was a real neat feeling. It was better than the 50 fans we expected,” MacDonald said laughingly of the roughly 1,000 spectators who turned out.

The Canadian contingent, which will eventually include a couple of dozen of the team’s family members as they slowly trickle into Italy, witnessed the victory it was looking for as the rink moved to 1-0 in the standings.

It was a sluggish start as Canada trailed 2-1 after four ends before cracking a deuce in the fifth.

“The first three ends weren’t too great,” admitted Thiessen. “But in the fourth we played it pretty well and from then on I thought we dominated every end. It was like we got our sea legs underneath us.”

They also got a greater understanding of the ice, which ran straighter than in practice.

“It was curling like a million feet in practice and not curling at all in the game,” said MacDonald. “It was hard to know what to expect because in practice it curled from the edge of the 12 foot to the button and by the time of the game it moved four feet or less.”

“It was just a matter of getting used to it,” agreed Thiessen.

Fenson had a chance to tie the game at 5-5 in the ninth end, but his attempted raised takeout ran wide and allowed the steal.

Canada sits behind Germany’s Andy Kapp — who is making his 13th appearance at the world championship — at 2-0 after 5-4 and 9-3 wins over China’s Fengchun Wang and Japan’s Makoto Tsuruga, respectively.

In another evening game, Denmark’s Ulrik Schmidt hammered Switzerland’s Christof Schwaller 9-3 in their first matchups of the 12-team tournament. Scotland’s Warwick Smith is also 1-0, along with another Olympian, Thomas Dufour of France.

Smith toppled Norway — minus skip Thomas Ulsrud — 5-4.

Canada faces Denmark and Switzerland today.

“They’re a good team, but there are lots of good teams here, so if you let your guard down for a second it can move pretty quick on you,” MacDonald said of Schmidt. “Getting used to time change has been the toughest part so far.”

“We played right beside them tonight,” Thiessen added of Schmidt’s rink. “They managed to get up early on Switzerland and ran off a bit.”

— Canwest News Service