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The 2017 Ford Men’s World Championships will take place at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada from Saturday 1 to Sunday 9 April.

Some of Edmonton's distinguished residents were Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank Of England, who lived there from the age of 6 until he left for Harvard University, Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong, Michael J Fox, and k.d.lang, who were all born there. Diversity rules!

Back to the curling, where the 12 team field, battling it out for not only the world title but also last chance Olympic qualification points, is made up of host nation Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and USA.

Scotland are represented by David Murdoch (Skip), Greg Drummond (Third), Scott Andrews (Second), Michael Goodfellow (Lead) and Ross Paterson (Alternate), who play one game on Saturday afternoon against Norway, then have USA and Japan as their opponents on Sunday.

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Photographs now available.

The Scotland Team

David Murdoch has already won 2 World Championships and is the current Olympic Silver Medallist.

Northlands Coliseum

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Scotland started their campaign with a 6-9 defeat against Norway yesterday. In a close game where the Scots were never in front, Norway scored 2 shots in the last end for the win.

In their second game they are currently 1-1 versus USA after the 3rd end. Coverage of this game is live on the World Curling Federation website. http://www.worldcurling.org/wmcc2017

The Northlands Coliseum venue during play - 15,000 spectators watch the opening session

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It's now 4-4 after 7 ends and I'm off to bed. Early start tomorrow!

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I obviously went to bed about 20 minutes early, as Scotland scored 5 shots in the following end to lead 9-4, prompting a concession by USA. They then went on to beat Japan by 7-4 in a tight game.

However, as ever with Scotland, they undid all the good work the following day by losing 7-9 to up-and-coming China, after China scored 2 shots in the last end for the win. More expectedly, Scotland lost to Canada by 2-8 in their next game, never being in the lead and losing 4 of the first 5 ends.

Scotland continued their losing streak this morning, being beaten 5-6 by Switzerland in another tight game and again losing 2 shots in the last end. Against Netherlands, things started to look a bit better, as the Scots took command in the middle of the game and eventually won by 9-5. This leaves them way behind with 3 wins out of 7. Canada are still unbeaten on 6 wins, with Switzerland and Sweden on 5 wins and 1 defeat.

Tomorrow Scotland play Sweden and Italy and complete their round-robin games against Germany and Russia on Thursday. Three wins are an absolute must and even then results between the teams above them might conspire against them for a place in the final four.

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The game against Sweden was another one where Scotland were always behind, eventually losing 4-6. The Scots must now win their final 3 games - all winnable - and hope for slip-ups by at least 3 of the teams above them in order to qualify through the tie-breakers.

The next game versus Italy won't finish until about 2am and I won't be around tomorrow night, so it'll be a long wait to find out Scotland's fate. Everything crossed for a favourable outcome.

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Third time lucky with this post???  

The game v Italy was a low-scoring affair with Scotland scoring in 3 consecutive ends to pull away for a 6-2 win. Equally low scoring, but much more convincing, was the win against Germany by 7-1. In their final game against bottom-of-the-table Russia, the Scots employed their usual tactics of trying their best to lose the game. However David Murdoch secured the 7-6 extra end victory with an inch perfect draw with the final stone.

Three wins out of three for Scotland, but no perfect ending as they only managed 6th place with 6 wins and 5 defeats. Canada secured top spot with 11 wins out of 11 games with Sweden finishing second with 9 wins. These two will play later tonight in the 1v2 game with the winner going straight to the Gold Medal game on Sunday. Switzerland and USA completed the last four on 8 wins and they play each other in the 3v4 game tomorrow afternoon.

What Scotland did manage to achieve was the 2018 Winter Olympics qualification for GBR, so there is a positive outcome from a disappointing week.

Just to prove that statistics mean nothing without equivalent game performance, Scotland were the 2nd best team, Michael Goodfellow was the 2nd best lead, Scott Andrews was the 3rd best second, Greg Drummond was the 4th best third and David Murdoch was the 2nd best skip. You'll probably have guessed that Canada were the best in every category - and also that they'll never tire of reminding us!  

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As expected, Canada beat Sweden 7-4 in the 1v2 game to qualify for the Gold/Silver Medal game on Sunday, the difference being the 3 shots they scored in the 7th end. In the 3v4 game tonight, Switzerland have beaten USA 11-4 after 8 ends. The Swiss dominated the game, extending their lead at every opportunity.

Sweden now play Switzerland later tonight with the winners facing Canada tomorrow and the losers playing in the Bronze Medal game against USA, also tomorrow.

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In the Semi-final game, Sweden scraped past Switzerland 7-6 after an extra end to once again face Canada in the Gold/Silver Medal game. Switzerland forced the extra end after a measure for shot and then the extra end went all the way to the final stone, when Sweden hit out the Swiss stone and stayed in the rings for the win.

The Bronze Medal game ended in victory for Switzerland by 7-5 against USA. Switzerland only scored 3 of the 10 ends and won courtesy of 4 shots scored in the 7th end. As a keen amateur, I think USA made poor shot selections on their last 2 stones exacerbated by poor playing to gift the Swiss a simple shot to score their 4. With 4 stones to come, USA had 4 stones in the rings, including 2nd and 3rd shots, and instead of allowing the Swiss to score 1 shot, they forced the issue and gave the game away. It's a slippery game!

The Canada v Sweden game is yet to start, so I'll finish off the thread tomorrow with the results and photos.

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It'll come as no surprise that Canada beat Sweden 4-2 in the Gold/Silver Medal game. Very low-scoring and very tense until the last end. With the game tied at 2-2 after 5 ends and Canada having last stone advantage, there was no further scoring until the 9th end when Canada took 2 shots. Sweden had narrowly failed to lie shot after a double take-out with their last stone, leaving Canada an open draw for the end. In the last end Canada kept taking Swedish stones out until they could not be beaten.

Amazingly Canada are now the current holders of the Men's and Women's World titles, both with 100% records - the first ever team to do so.


FINAL RESULTS
GOLD - CANADA - skip Brad Gushue, third Mark Nichols, second Brett Gallant, lead Geoff Walker, Tom Sallows and coach Jules Owchar
SILVER - SWEDEN - skip Niklas Edin, third Oskar Eriksson, second Rasmus Wranaa, lead Christoffer Sundgren, alternate Henrik Leek and coach Fredrik Lindberg
BRONZE - SWITZERLAND - fourth player Benoit Schwarz, third Claudio Paetz, second player and skip Peter De Cruz, lead Valentin Tanner, alternate Romano Meier and coach Claudio Pescia


All photographs come from the World Curling Federation website.