Scots take the measure of Norway in semifinal

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/04/2011 (5609 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — First he won the measure, then he won the game.

And with that, Scotland’s Tommy Brewster — to the surprise of everyone, including himself — advanced on Saturday evening to tonight’s final of the 2011 World Men’s Curling Championship.

“I am a bit shell-shocked,” said Brewster. “I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. It’s amazing. Amazing. That’s what we worked all these years for, to finally get here to a world championship. And then to take three 22-year-olds to the final is amazing.”

And he did it in amazing fashion.

Playing Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud in Saturday evening’s semifinal, Brewster won a last-rock measure in the 10th end to deny Ulsrud what would have been a game-winning deuce. And then he used his rebirth to its fullest advantage, scoring a single in the extra end to beat Norway 7-6 and advance to face Canada’s Jeff Stoughton in the final.

Brewster also got a huge assist from Ulsrud in the ninth end when the Norwegian skip, without hammer and up 5-4, elected to draw with his final stone of the end instead of hitting the lone Scottish stone in the house and rolling behind cover.

The gamble backfired when Ulsrud’s draw was heavy and Brewster needed to draw only the eight-foot for a go-ahead deuce.

It was Brewster’s reward for a ruthlessly conservative game all night long — a style that might not be as successful tonight against a Canada foursome that has dictated the play all week long.

“Probably not,” Brewster admitted. “(But) I’m not going to change my ways. We’ve played that way all season. I’ve got young guys, they’re still learning and everything.”

Brewster might have done Canada a huge favour by beating Norway. The Norwegians had won eight straight games heading into the final and were only still alive in this competition because they stole a win from a distracted Team Canada on the final round-robin draw Thursday night.

That created the spectre of Canada potentially facing in the final a team that they probably should already have eliminated.

Instead, Ulsrud will now face Sweden’s Niklas Edin in this afternoon’s bronze medal game instead. Ulsrud defeated Edin 7-2 in the 3 vs. 4 game Saturday afternoon to advance to the semifinal with Scotland.

Ulsrud was asked for a prediction for tonight’s game. “Canada,” Ulsrud said immediately. “These guys (Scotland) gave us a big fight, but I think Canada is big favourites going in.”

But Brewster does have a few things going for him tonight. While his entire team are worlds rookies and he lost both his previous games to Stoughton, he’s learned from the experiences.

“We learned a lot from both games and we can take a lot out of both games.”

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Then there’s the curious side note that Brewster has never lost a gold medal final on the international stage, having previously won a world junior title and two European mixed championships.

And finally, Brewster says the low expectations of his team also mean there’s no pressure on them tonight.

“If we get silver,” said Brewster, “at the end of the day we’re the team that doesn’t have any experience whatsoever compared to these guys. He (Stoughton) has been in two world finals before.

“We’ve got nothing to lose. We’ll go out there, give it our all and play as well as we can.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca