Canadian wheelchair mixed doubles team steals win to move up leaderboard at worlds

Nothing has come easy for the Canadians at the 2024 World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship at Gangneung Curling Centre in Gangneung, South Korea.

Tonight’s win was no exception: Team Canada, consisting of players Collinda Joseph and Dennis Thiessen, head coach Dana Ferguson, and team leader Kyle Turcotte, had its back against the wall in a game that could have slipped away.

“It was a tough game for us,” said Thiessen. “But we feel great getting the win.

“Now, I think we just get a good rest and take stuff from this game that we can improve on, and we’ll have a good day tomorrow.”

After trading singles, Team Italy (Orietta Berto and Paolo Ioriatti) gained the upper hand early and cracked Canada for three in the fourth end. The Canadians hoped to answer immediately by activating its powerplay in the fifth, but Italy thwarted any offence and forced Canada to one.

In the seventh end, Joseph and Thiessen managed to generate two with hammer and tied the game coming home. Then, it was Italy’s turn to activate its powerplay, moving play away from centre and making it all that more difficult for Canada to score in the final frame. But a clutch draw from Thiessen followed up by a perfectly placed guard from Joseph meant the Italians needed the pin to win—and they came up short.

Though Thiessen’s rock was the one counting in the end, he felt his teammate was the reason they came away on top.

“Collinda’s playing so well. All credit to her,” said Thiessen.

As a result, Italy was handed its first loss of the week and now sits in a four-way tie for second place in Group B with Canada, England, and Switzerland at 2-1. The United States (2-0) sit ahead in the group.

Slovakia (3-0) is the only undefeated team left in Group A while Estonia, Latvia, and Norway follow closely behind at 2-1. In Group C, China and Korea stay tied for first at 3-0, with Japan lurking at 3-1.

Round robin action resumes tomorrow when Canada faces off with Finland (Tuesday, 11:30 p.m. ET) and England (Wednesday, 6:30 a.m. ET).

The top eight teams from the round robin qualify for playoffs.

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 Mixed Doubles 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.