Koe slips to No. 2 behind Norway

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This article was published 09/04/2010 (5951 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TEAM Norway has not skipped a beat without skip Thomas Ulsrud at the 2010 Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

Torger Nergard, replacing Ulsrud at the international event, stunned Canada’s Kevin Koe 9-8 in the final round-robin draw of the 12-team tournament Thursday night to wrestle away first place overall. The two teams will meet again tonight in the Page playoff 1 versus 2 game, with the victor moving straight to Sunday’s championship final.

Nergard earns the hammer for the rematch, courtesy of the first-place result.

After keeping Koe to one in the first, Norway recorded three in the second end and added deuces in the fourth and sixth ends to open up a 7-5 lead in the wide-open affair. Koe managed a deuce of his own to tie it 7-7 in the seventh before the teams traded singles in the eighth and ninth. Norway then capped it with an open draw to the four-foot for one in the 10th.

Nergard, who usually plays third, but was forced into skipping due to an illness in Ulsrud’s family, finishes first at 10-1, followed by Canada at 9-2. Scotland and the United States finished at 8-3 to round out the four playoff positions.

American Pete Fenson finishes third by virtue of his 7-5 round-robin win over Scotland’s Warwick Smith earlier in the event. Smith dropped a 9-7 decision to Switzerland’s Stefan Karnusian in the evening draw Thursday, while Fenson hammered Sweden’s Per Carlsen 10-2 in six ends. The U.S. doubled Germany’s Andy Kapp 8-4 in the morning as Fenson finished strong with six straight victories.

Fenson will meet Smith in the Page 3 versus 4 game Saturday morning, with the victor advancing to face the loser of the Page 1 versus 2 game on Saturday afternoon.

Ferbey to join Gushue

AT first, Randy Ferbey had his doubts.

But the more the former world champion skip listened to Olympic gold medallist Brad Gushue’s idea, the more sense it made.

Ferbey, from Edmonton, will join Gushue’s rink from St. John’s, N.L., next season to compete in major cash bonspiels. It’s still up in the air whether the rink will be eligible to play in the Brier playoffs.

“It has the potential of being very good for me,” Ferbey, 50, said in a telephone interview from St. John’s on Thursday. “Playing with a great young team, prolonging my career on a top-level team, gets my juices going.

“I don’t know how many more years I’m going to be playing. This gives me an opportunity to get to the top again.”

Rounding out the rink will be Mark Nichols at second and Ryan Fry at lead.

Ferbey’s current rink of Dave Nedohin, Scott Pfeifer and Marcel Rocque will play together for the last time at the World Curling Tour’s Players’ Championship next week in Dawson Creek, B.C. Together, they won four Briers and three world championships.

“It will be very emotional,” Ferbey said. “We’re still going to be great friends off the ice.”

Nedohin, Pfeifer and Rocque have all decided to take next year off.

— From the news services