Ideson and Co. feeling confident heading into final day after explosive outings

The Canadians kept their playoff hopes alive after picking up two crucial wins on Day 5 of the 2024 World Wheelchair Curling Championship at Gangneung Curling Centre in Gangneung, South Korea.

Team Canada skip Mark Ideson and his supporting cast, which includes fourth Jon Thurston, third Ina Forrest, second Gil Dash, alternate Chrissy Molnar, head coach Mick Lizmore, and team leader Kyle Paquette, struggled to score yesterday and came up short in both its games.

But today, the team bounced back in remarkable fashion and put itself back in the driver’s seat before the final day of the round robin.

“It feels good to get back on the winning side,” said Ideson. “Yesterday was tough, but we played solid and stuck to our game plan today and it worked out really well.”

After taking down the tournament’s ex-leader Latvia 9-2, it would have been safe to say Team Canada’s offensive woes had subsided. But then, in their afternoon meeting with Czechia, the Canadians kicked it up a notch and potted a rare seven-ender en route to a commanding 13-4 win.

“Honestly, the end wasn’t really looking like it was going to turn into that,” said Ideson. “We got a bit lucky, they got a bit unlucky, and in the end there was just a bunch of yellow rocks everywhere. I’ve never seen or been part of a seven-ender before, so it was pretty unusual.”

As unusual as it may have been, Ideson didn’t let it distract him from the bigger picture: Canada’s final two round robin games on the horizon.

“Norway and Sweden are both excellent teams, so we know we’ll have to bring our best tomorrow. I think today gave us a lot of confidence. We’ll get some rest tonight and hit the ground running tomorrow,” he said.

A logjam has formed for the top spot as Canada, China (Haitao Wang), Latvia (Ojars Briedis), Korea (Hyeonchul Lee), Norway (Jostein Stordahl), and Sweden (Viljo Petersson-Dahl) all find themselves tied at 6-3.

Slovakia (Radoslav Duris, 5-4), Italy (Egidio Marchese, 4-5) and the United States (Matthew Thums, 4-5) are on the outside looking in.

Scotland (Hugh Nibloe, 2-7), Czechia (Dana Selnekovicova, 2-7), and Estonia (Ain Villau, 1-8) are officially out of playoff contention.

The round robin concludes tomorrow when Canada faces Norway (Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET) and Sweden (Thursday, 5 a.m. ET).

The top six teams from the round robin advance to the playoffs, with the top two receiving a bye while the remaining four play in the first round. The gold and bronze medal games will take place Friday, March 8 at 9 p.m. ET.

All games will be available to watch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@curling1.

For live scores, standings, and statistics for the 2024 World Wheelchair Curling Championship, go to https://livescores.worldcurling.org/wwhcc/. This story will be available in French as soon as possible at https://www.curling.ca/category-all-posts-fr/?lang=fr