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Canadian teams set to open play at World Juniors
Both Canadian entries will kick off the 2014 World Junior Curling Championships on Wednesday at the Waldhaus Arena in Flims, Switzerland.
Braden Calvert’s team from Winnipeg and Kelsey Rocque’s team from Edmonton, who won the men’s and women’s gold medals respectively at the 2014 M&M Meat Shops Canadian Junior Championships last month in Liverpool, N.S., will begin their round-robin draws with two games apiece on Wednesday.
Calvert, backed up by third Kyle Kurz, second Lucas Van Den Bosch, lead Brendan Wilson, alternate Matt Dunstone and coach Tom Clasper, will play Russia’s Sergey Glukhov in his opener at noon local time (6 a.m. ET) before playing Sweden’s Fredrik Nyman at 8 p.m. local (2 p.m. ET).
Rocque’s team — third Keely Brown, second Taylor McDonald, lead Claire Tully, alternate Alison Kotylak and coach Amanda-Dawn Coderre — plays its opener at 8 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET) against Zuzana Hájková of the Czech Republic, then takes
on Veronica Zappone of Italy at 4 p.m. local (10 a.m. ET).
The men’s field is headed by reigning world champion Kyle Smith of Scotland, who beat Russia’s Evgeny Arkhipov in last year’s gold-medal game in Sochi, Russia. Dunstone, who skipped Canada last year before losing to Calvert in the 2014 Manitoba final, won the bronze medal.
The reigning world junior women’s champ, Alina Kovaleva, also is back to defend her title. She be Scotland’s Hannah Fleming in the final. Canada’s Corryn Brown finished out of the playoffs with a 3-6 record.
The 10 men’s and 10 women’s teams will play a round-robin draw that concludes on Sunday. The top four teams will make the Page playoff round. The women’s gold and bronze-medal games are scheduled for March 5 at 9 a.m. local time (3 a.m. Eastern), while the men’s gold and bronze games are at 1 p.m. local (7 a.m. ET).
The World Curling Federation will provide streaming coverage of selected games at the World Juniors. For information, as well as the event schedule and list of teams, go to wjcc2014.curlingevents.com/
Here is the full round-robin schedule for the Canadian teams:
(All times Eastern)
Men
Feb. 26, 6 a.m., vs. Russia (Sergey Glukhov)
Feb. 26, 2 p.m., vs. Sweden (Fredrik Nyman)
Feb. 27, 8 a.m., vs. Italy (Amos Mosaner)
Feb. 28, 2 a.m., vs. Scotland (Kyle Smith)
Feb. 28, 10 a.m., vs. China (Zhilin Shao)
March 1, 3 a.m., vs. Norway (Eirik Mjøen)
March 1, 1 p.m., vs. Switzerland (Yannick Schwaller)
March 2, 6 a.m., vs. U.S.A. (Jake Vukich)
March 2, 2 p.m., vs. Austria (Sebastian Wunderer)
Women
Feb. 26, 2 a.m., Czech Republic (Zuzana Hájková
Feb. 26, 10 a.m., Italy (Veronica Zappone)
Feb. 27, 3 a.m., Russia (Alina Kovaleva)
Feb. 27, 1 p.m., South Korea (Kyeong-Ae Kim)
Feb. 28, 6 a.m., Sweden (Isabella Wranå)
Feb. 28, 2 p.m., Switzerland (Corina Mani)
March 1, 8 a.m., U.S.A. (Cory Christensen)
March 2, 2 a.m., Scotland (Gina Aitken)
March 2, 10 a.m., Denmark (Christine Svensen)
Canada has won a leading 17 world junior men’s titles since 1975 and eight women’s crowns (one behind Scotland) since 1988. The last Canadian teams to win world junior titles were skipped by Saskatchewan’s Marliese Kasner (Miller) in 2003 in Flims, Switzerland, and by Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher in Östersund, Sweden, in 2012.
The Canadian junior women’s team, from left, Kelsey Rocque, Keely Brown, Taylor McDonald, coach Amanda-Dawn Coderre, Claire Tully. Missing, alternate Alison Kotylak and team leader Andrea Ronneback. (Photo, CCA/Mark O’Neill)
The Canadian junior men’s team, from left, Braden Calvert, Kyle Kurz, Lucas Van Den Bosch, coach Tom Clasper, Brendan Wilson. Missing, alternate Matt Dunstone, team leader Garry Coderre.