CANADA STILL ALIVE AT JR. B

A 1-1 DAY PUTS CANADA’S BACK AGAINST THE WALL AT WORLD JR. B CHAMPIONSHIP 

Canada’s playoff chances took a hit on Saturday in Finland, where the U21 men dropped their morning game to Japan. They rallied to beat Austria in the afternoon, keeping their chances for promotion alive – albeit barely. 

“It was a tough game against Japan,” said Zach Davies, second for Canada. “We played well, but hats off to the Japanese skip. He made everything he looked at.” 

Sitting with a 3-2 record at the World Junior-B Championship, the Edmonton-based squad of Johnson Tao, Jaedon Neuert, Davies, and Adam Naugler still have a chance to make the playoffs, but will need a lot of things to go right.  

In the three pools, the top eight teams of the 22 in the field will advance to playoffs. At the end of the round robin, there will likely a number of teams with two losses, which will cause a massive logjam for the last playoff spots.  

Fortunately for Canada, their Last Stone Draw score is among the best in the competition. Only Japan and Sweden are better, but both countries look like they will advance based on record alone.  

With a full day of round-robin play still to come and more than a dozen teams in the mix, there are too many permutations of wins and losses to make any predictions, but it is safe to say that the Canadians cannot afford to lose their final game with Poland. 

Canada’s morning matchup with Japan started without hammer. The Japan squad, skipped by Ryo Aoki, blanked the first, then took three in the second. After two more blank ends, Canada was forced to one in the fifth end, and Japan took one in the sixth. Canada was able to manage a deuce in the seventh, bringing the score within one, but Japan was able to hold them off in the eighth. The final score was 6-3. 

The afternoon game with Austria was better for the Canadians. Starting with hammer, they scored two in the first. They forced Austria, skipped by Matthaeus Hofer, to a single in the second, and scored another two with hammer in the third to go up 4-1. Although Austria was able to answer with two of their own, Canada maintained control for the remainder of the game and finished with a 7-5. 

“The boys showed some great resilience this afternoon with Austria,” said Davies. “We got rocks buried, made them chase, and finished off our ends with some beauty shots. We are hungry for that wildcard spot!” 

Team Canada, including coach Skip Wilson, assistant coach Ben Morin, and team leader Rob Krepps, will face Poland on Sunday, and may spend the rest of the day watching scoreboards and standings tables.  

Live scoring can be found here:  
https://livescores.worldcurling.org/wjbcc/aspnet/current?EventID=1  

Some games are livestreamed here: https://www.youtube.com/@CurlingFinland