Second win at world mixed! 

Team Canada steamrolls Team Latvia to remain undefeated at 2024 World Mixed Curling Championship 

Team Canada put its best foot forward Sunday morning in a commanding 19-1 win over Team Latvia’s Kriss Vonda (1-1) at the 2024 World Mixed Curling Championship at Curl Aberdeen, Scotland. 

The win, which took all of six ends to complete, improves Team Canada’s record to an unblemished 2-0, putting it in a tie for Pool A’s overall lead with Team New Zealand’s Brett Sargon (2-0). 

It was obvious that Shaun Meachem’s Swift Current, Sask., squad of vice-skip Kelly Schafer, second Chris Haichert, lead Teejay Haichert and coach Pat Simmons were ready to take care of business after what was a shaky start to its world mixed campaign. Team Canada struggled in its opener Saturday against Team Turkey’s Ilknur Urusan (0-2) before some eighth-end heroics righted the ship, scoring four to tie the match, then stealing two in an extra end for the win. 

Sunday, however, presented a refreshed and more comfortable Team Canada. 

“We had a much better game,” said skip Shaun Meachem. “The ice was curling a little more. There’s still some room to tidy a few things up, but feeling stronger each game.” 

Feeling stronger may be a humble appraisal on behalf of the Canadian skip, as his team leapt from the gate against Team Latvia with a score of four in the first end with hammer. 

The deluge of offence would not stop there, seeing Team Canada rack-up a 13-0 lead after just four ends of play, highlighted by a steal of six in the fourth end.  

“We played a pretty strong end,” said Meachem of the big steal. “He had to draw on a bit of a straight spot and racked on the wide guard.” 

Team Latvia would find the scoreboard in the fifth with a single before Team Canada iced the match by scoring a second six-ender in the sixth, marking the 19-1 final. 

Scoring 19 points is the second-most offence a single team has produced in a World Mixed Curling Championship match since the event’s inception in 2015. Only Team Germany’s Andy Kapp can boast better, landing a 21-1 win over Team Nigeria’s Tijani Cole in just six ends at the 2019 iteration of the championship. 

Round-robin action continues Monday with Team Canada set to face Team Hungary’s Gabor Ezsol (1-1) at 11 a.m., (all times Eastern). 

Event information, rosters, and draw can be found at https://worldcurling.org/events/worldmixed/.  

All sheets and draws of the World Mixed Curling Championship will be available to stream live on The Curling Channel. 

This story will be available in French as soon as possible at https://www.curling.ca/category-all-posts-fr/?lang=fr