OGDEN, Utah — Red, white and blue-clad curling fans who packed the arena got what they came for Sunday afternoon at the 2026 LGT World Men’s Curling Championship.
With the home-country faithful roaring in approval, John Shuster’s U.S. team toppled Canada’s Team Matt Dunstone 9-3 at the Weber County Ice Sheet.
The result left both teams with 2-2 records in the 13-team round-robin standings, and was the second straight loss for Dunstone’s Winnipeg team.
Team Shuster broke the game open with a draw for four in the fifth end after Dunstone missed on a pair of draw attempts, which typified a frustrating afternoon up and down the lineup for the Canadian champs.
“Early on, it’s tough not getting the hammer (in the first end) and I think it starts there for us,” said Dunstone, who’s backed up by vice-skip Colton Lott, second E.J. Harnden, lead Ryan Harnden, alternate Geoff Walker, team coach Caleb Flaxey and national coach Jeff Stoughton. “John made two great shots in one and three to score deuces and then we’re in chase mode from there. We’re just a little bit off, and it’s one of those stretches.
“But the good thing for us, we’re 2-and-2 and we would all be the first ones to admit that we’re not playing remotely close to what we’re capable of. And, it all starts with me. We have an opportunity tomorrow morning to get back to where we need to be.”
The U.S. reps couldn’t have asked for a better start, as Shuster made a pair of wonderful shots to pick up deuces in the first and third ends. In the first, he had to draw to the side of the button to outcount a Canadian stone to pick up a second point.
After forcing Team Dunstone to hit for one in the second, Shuster was at it again in the third. Dunstone made a nice corner freeze to sit shot, biting the button, but Shuster was able to tick the Canadian stone sideways and push his own stone onto another Canadian counter, and score two.
Canada was again forced to a single in the fourth, and went all in trying to generate a momentum-shifting steal in the fifth. But it was Shuster who kept the momentum with the draw for four. The teams proceeded to swap singles before Canada conceded the defeat.
“I just think we didn’t adjust well to a different surface — probably quicker and straighter than we’ve seen,” said E.J. Harnden. “I didn’t dislike a lot of the throws; it was just us not really trusting what we were seeing. So I think there’s some positives to take away from that, and this is a long event. There’s no reason to get down; we have to let this one go and learn from it and then forget about it. This is a tight group, and we believe in one another, and we know what we’re capable of. We’ve been curling at a high level for a long period of time, and there’s no reason why we can’t do that now.”
Team Canada begins a tough stretch of three split-draw (morning, night) days on Monday, taking on Poland’s Team Konrad Stych (1-3) at 11 a.m. (all times Eastern) and Japan’s Team Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi (2-2) at 9 p.m.
“I said to the guys at the fifth-end break, ‘We’re one shot, one end, one game away from getting this team back to where everybody’s used to seeing it,’ ” said Dunstone. “We’re a third of the way through this (round-robin schedule). We know we can play so much better, and we’re at a 2-and-2 record and still have so much control over where we are. We are not even close to the panic button, I promise you that.”
In other Sunday afternoon games, Scotland’s Team Ross Whyte (3-2) dispatched Poland 7-2; China’s Team Xiaoming Xu (2-2) downed Norway’s Team Andreas Haarstad (0-4) 9-4; and Switzerland’s Team Marco Hoesli (4-0) remained undefeated with a 9-7 extra-end triumph over Czechia’s Team Lukas Klima (1-4)
Japan, Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin (4-0), Germany’s Team Marc Muskatewitz (2-2), Italy’s Team Stefano Spiller (2-2), and South Korea’s Team Changmin Kim (2-2) all had byes on Sunday afternoon.
TSN/RDS2, the official broadcast partners of Curling Canada’s Season of Champions, will provide live coverage of Canada’s round-robin games, in addition to all playoff games. CLICK HERE for their complete broadcast schedule.
The list of teams, schedule information, and live scoring can be found by CLICKING HERE.
This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/fr/nouvelles-media/.
