Hammer a handicap for Koe?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2010 (5945 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kevin Koe carries the critical hammer into today’s gold-medal final against Norway’s Torger Nerg�*rd, but is there a chance he slips and pounds his own thumb with it?

That’s the question as, strangely enough, in both instances that these teams have met at the 2010 men’s world curling championship in Italy, it’s been the team without the hammer that has come through the victor.

“I was thinking about that today, it’s an interesting stat and we both had a three-ender in the second ends of those games. But I don’t put too much stock into it,” Carter Rycroft, Koe’s second, said of a previous 9-8 loss and 11-5 win. “I think you throw both those games out, especially for the rubber match.

“If we could go out and grab a deuce it would help for sure,” Rycroft said of taking advantage of hammer in the first end.

On that topic, Team Canada’s skip, who has the last rock, has the last say.

“I don’t think the two teams, with hammer, played their best in those two games. I like our chances,” said Koe. “I don’t think we lost a game at the Brier without hammer and we’ve done well here as well.”

The stats tell a slightly different story, though, as Koe is 4-2 with last-rock advantage throughout the week and 6-0 without. Norway is 7-1 with the hammer and 4-1 without.

— Canwest News Service