Canadians win four straight to earn bye to championship semi-final Friday

Since dropping back-to-back games midway through the 2024 World Wheelchair Curling Championship at Gangneung Curling Centre in Gangneung, South Korea, Team Canada has caught fire.

The Canadian squad, consisting of skip (lead rocks) Mark Ideson, fourth Jon Thurston, third Ina Forrest, second Gil Dash, alternate Chrissy Molnar, head coach Mick Lizmore, and team leader Kyle Paquette, finished round robin play with four straight wins while outscoring its opponents 39-12 in that span.

“Yeah, I feel like we’re hitting our stride, we’re reading the ice well, and we’re onto the rocks,” said Ideson. “We’re really looking forward to tomorrow.”

Not only did the team’s impressive play earn it a berth in the playoffs, it also sends Canada directly to Friday’s semi-final.

“Yeah, we knew how important that game was—it was a tough battle but nice to get the win,” added Ideson. “Going straight into the semi is important; it gives us a little extra rest and time to talk about how we’re going to strategize against whoever we see next.”

Canada started this morning’s game against Norway, skipped by Jostein Stordahl, with hammer, but after being forced in the first end, stole seven straight points en route to an 8-0 shutout.

In the evening draw, the Canadians fell behind early to Sweden, skipped by Viljo Petersson-Dahl, after two stolen points in the fourth put the Swedes ahead 4-1 at the break. But Canada’s red-hot flame was still burning within, and the team flipped the script to take a 6-5 lead into the eighth end. Sweden fourth Marcus Holm needed and drew pin to force an extra, but couldn’t repeat that same magic in the ninth as Canada earned a hard-fought 9-6 win.

Canada hasn’t won gold at the world wheelchair championship since 2013 when Ideson and Forrest brought home the hardware from Sochi, but did earn a silver medal at last year’s championship.
“Yeah, I mean, that’s why we’re here. We’d love to win another medal for Canada, but we’ll take it one game at a time and one shot at a time and hopefully we’ll land on the podium,” said Ideson.

Team China, skipped by Haitao Wang, has also punched its ticket to the semi-final. Wang’s team will look to defend its title after winning gold at 2023 worlds in Richmond.

The playoff bracket and schedule are as follows:

• 1 – China (both 1 and 2 get a bye to the semi-final Friday at 5 a.m. ET)
• 2 – Canada
• 3 – Latvia (will play Friday at 12 a.m. ET vs. Sweden)
• 4 – Korea (will play Friday at 12 a.m. ET vs. Norway)
• 5 – Norway
• 6 – Sweden

The semi-final games run Friday at 5 a.m. ET.

The gold and bronze medal games take place Friday 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.