Canada grinds out two more wins at 2016 Ford Worlds

SWIFT CURRENT — Canada’s Chelsea Carey won twice Tuesday at the Ford World Women’s Curling Championship, presented by Meridian Manufacturing, and did it without pulling her hair out. It was tempting, she said after the second game of the day. The Canadian skip was clearly frustrated with the changing ice conditions at the Credit Union iplex. Carey opened the day with a bit of a sloppy 7-5 win over Germany’s Daniela Driendl (3-3), and wrapped things up in the afternoon with a 5-4 win over a plucky but conservative Italian team. Federica Apollonio’s Italians kept it simple, but played better than the 0-5 record it had coming into the game. In other games with implications at the top of the standings, Switzerland’s Binia Feltscher defeated Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa 7-4 and Russia’s Anna Sidorova lost 6-5 to Erika Brown of the United States. Going into the evening draw, Canada and Switzerland have 6-1 records and are both done for the day. Eve Muirhead of Scotland is at 5-1, while Russia and Japan are at 4-2. All three teams have games on the late draw. In the other game on the afternoon draw, Denmark’s Lene Nielsen (3-4) defeated Finland’s Oona Kauste (1-5) 6-4. The Canadians —Carey, third Amy Nixon, second Jocelyn Peterman, lead Laine Peters, alternate Susan O’Connor and coach Charley Thomas — fell behind 3-2 after giving Italy a steal of one in the fifth end. The sixth end was blanked and the Canadians got a deuce in seven to get back into the lead. After a blanked eighth, the Italians took one in ninth to tie the score 4-4 coming home. The Canadians played it clean after a couple of perfectly executed tick shots from lead Laine Peters. Carey said the ice was heavy in the afternoon, taking the finesse game out of play. She was content to bang away with the Italians. As an example of the heavy ice, Carey talked about a draw on the first end that came up well short. “If you guess wrong you are going to look like a fool,” she said. “I threw it exactly how we wanted and I looked like an idiot because I came up 10 feet short. That’s really hard to deal with mentally because I don’t miss draws by 10 feet under normal conditions. So it’s challenging.”
Erika Brown of the U.S. calls instructions to sweepers during Tuesday's win over the U.S. (Photo, Curling Canada/Michael Burns)

Erika Brown of the U.S. calls instructions to sweepers during Tuesday’s win over the U.S. (Photo, Curling Canada/Michael Burns)

She said she the goal is to stay patient and figure it out. “And try not to rip your hair out while you are trying to figure it out,” she added with a laugh. With the two wins in the bank, and knowing the team will be no worse than tied for first place going into play Wednesday, Team Canada was looking forward to a much-needed rest on Tuesday night. “We are going to go out for dinner, we are going to have a drink and then we are going to go to bed and get a lot of rest,” said a smiling Carey. “We are very tired, we have the night and the morning off so we have to be well-rested before we go into those back-to-back games tomorrow.” In the game between the States and Russia, the Russians fought an uphill battle from the second end. The Americans scored two in the second and the teams then started trading singles, with Brown going into the ninth end with a 5-3 lead. Sidorova blanked the end and tied the game with a deuce in the 10th. Brown won the game on a draw to the top 12-foot. Action resumes at 7 p.m. (all times MDT) at the Credit Union iplex. Canada has the night off, but will return to action Wednesday with games against South Korea at 2 p.m. MDT and Finland at 7 p.m. For ticket and other event information, visit https://www.curling.ca/2016worldwomen/tickets/ For the complete results, standings, the schedule and much more, visit to https://www.curling.ca/2016worldwomen/ This story will be posted in French as soon as possible at https://www.curling.ca/2016worldwomen/?lang=fr TSN (RDS2 in French), the exclusive television network for Curling Canada’s Season of Champions, will provide complete coverage of the 2016 Ford Worlds.