Junior men rebound for first win at Worlds

Team Canada’s Tyler Tardi rebounded from an opening-day loss with a 6-4 win over Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell on Sunday at the 2019 World Junior Curling Championships, in Liverpool, N.S. “Yeah, it’s a good bounce back,” said a relieved Tardi, who is backed by third Sterling Middleton, second Matt Hall, lead Alex Horvath, alternate Rylan Kleiter and coach Paul Tardi. “Yesterday was a little disappointing with the way we finished. Today was a good way to focus on what we were doing well last night and carry that over and keep it consistent throughout the game and I thought we did that really well.” In Sunday’s game, Canada kept things clean for the first two ends, but in the third, they went all out to score, and it paid off. With multiple rocks belonging to Norway cluttering up the four-foot, Tardi made an up-weight triple to clear the rings and score three. But Norway battled back. With the score tied 4-4 after eight, Tardi drew for a deuce to take the lead into ten, and picked out a Norwegian counter with his last to ensure the 6-4 win. “It was tough,” said Tardi about the opening day extra-end loss to the USA’s Andrew Stopera. “We played well, we were happy with how we played, but you can’t ease off the pedal against a team like the USA, they’re great guys. It just gave us a bit of a wake-up call. We eased off the pedal a bit and lost a bit of momentum we had early in the game and we just focussed on that more today.” “We were figuring out the ice a bit better,” he said about adjustments the team made today. “It’s always a bit of a learning curve at the start of any event, where you’re trying to figure out the ice and the rocks, but today I thought we communicated a little better and did that better than the first game.” The Team Canada men are already looking ahead to Monday, when they’ll have their first two-game day – against Switzerland’s Marco Hoesli at 8 a.m. ET, then Scotland’s Ross Whyte, the 2018 world junior silver medallist at 6 p.m. ET. (This game will be streamed on World Curling Federation’s Youtube channel.) “I think a lot was good in that game (today),” said the Canadian skip. “So I think we’re going to figure out all the good things that were happening and try to fine-tune the small things and get a lot of rest for tomorrow.” Women’s action got underway on Sunday morning as Alberta’s Selena Sturmay, third Abby Marks, second Kate Goodhelpsen, lead Paige Papley, alternate Karlee Burgess and coach Amanda-Dawn St. Laurent lost a close 6-5 battle to Scotland’s Lisa Davie. The women are back on the ice at 7 p.m. ET against USA’s Cait Flannery. This game will be streamed on World Curling Federation’s Youtube channel. Event information, including news and live scoring, are available at the event website, https://www.worldcurling.org/wjcc2019 As well, selected games will be streamed live on the World Curling Federation’s Youtube channel, https://www.worldcurling.org/wjcc2019/live-stream