Ford World Championship
Bronze medal game: Scotland 7, Denmark 6
Scotland took bronze medals from this year’s Ford World Men’s Championship when they beat Denmark by 7-6 on Sunday morning.
The Scots opened with a two in the first end. Denmark then blanked three ends and finally got onto the score board in the fifth end with two points when skip Rasmus Stjerne drew into the house to level the score. In the sixth end, Scottish skip David Murdoch produced a nose-hit on a Danish stone at the back of the house to score two and take a two-point lead, at 4-2. But in the seventh, the Danes once again levelled. This time skip Stjerne hot out a Scottish stone to score two points for 4-4.
In the eighth end, Murdoch played a well-judged tap-out on a Danish stone while keeping his own in the house to score three points for a 7-4 lead. Following this, Stjerne produced a spectacular multiple take-out to score two and keep the game alive, with the Scots ahead by 7-6.
The Scottish victory came when Murdoch cleared out two Danish stones with his own to empty the house and leave the score at 7-6.
Murdoch celebrates bronze…and thinks about what might have been
Considering their obvious disappointment at the earlier semi-final loss to Canada, this was an outstanding recovery by the five-man Scottish squad – skip David Murdoch, Tom Brewster, Scott Andrews, Michael Goodfellow and Greg Drummond.
And even after winning his bronze win, skip Murdoch could not help reflecting on what might have been, saying, “it’s disappointing not getting to the final – we had that chance but we didn’t grasp it. But we wanted to make sure we went home with a medal, so we were really fired to come out and win today. It’s just rewards for such a good week”.
He continued, “this is the world championships before the Olympics and you tend to find that the best teams are here and they’re starting to get to the top of their game. The fact that we can top the round-robin and shoot some really good numbers shows that we’re doing a lot of things right. We’re going to take a lot of encouragement that we’re doing the right things. We know that when we bring our ‘A’ game we can beat anyone. We just need to be a bit more consistent”.
More information at the RCCC web site: http://royalcaledoniancurlingclub.org/blog/mens-worlds-latest/
Final: Canada 6, Sweden 8.
Sweden : World and European Champions 2012 -13
Sweden were crowned world champions when they beat hosts Canada by 8-6 in Sunday afternoon’s gold medal final of the 2013 Ford World Men’s Curling Championships in Victoria.
The Swedes opened with a score of two in the first end when their skip Niklas Edin delivered a nose-hit on a Canadian stone. Canada responded with a single point in the second end when skip Brad Jacobs hit with his last stone.
In the third end, Edin played a perfect little tap-up to score two points and take a 4-1 lead. Canada brought themselves right back into the game in the fourth when Jacobs tapped-out a Swedish stone to score two and close the Swedish lead to just 4-3. Perhaps the game’s key turning point came in the sixth end, when Jacobs failed in an attempt to remove two Swedish stones, and, with the stone of theirs that remained in the house, the Swedes stole one point for a 6-3 lead.
In the eighth end, Sweden closed in on the title when Edin drew his final stone into the house to score two points for an 8-4 lead. Canada scored two more points in the ninth to close the gap to 8-6 in Sweden’s favour, and Sweden eventually ran Canada out of stones in the tenth, to add the world title to the European crown they had already won this season, with a final score-line of 8-6.
Afterwards, Swedish skip Edin said, “we had a really good game here. I’m so proud of my team, we executed the plan perfectly, so I’m just super-happy”.
The full international story of this event is available by clicking on: http://www.curling.ca/championships/worlds/
