First loss for Canada at World Mixed Doubles

They made it close, but Canada came up just short in a 9-6 loss to Scotland at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Sochi, Russia on Tuesday morning.
Charley Thomas (WCF/Alina Pavlyuchik Photo)

Charley Thomas (WCF/Alina Pavlyuchik Photo)

Calgary’s Kalynn Park and Charley Thomas, with coach Jim Waite, came into the fourth day of competition undefeated at the top of Group C with a 5-0 record, but Scotland’s Judith and Lee McCleary (2-3) opened the game with a steal of two and never looked back. Park and Thomas struggled through the first four ends and trailed 5-1 at the break. They fought back with a single in the fifth, then stole three in the sixth when Lee McCleary’s final draw slid too far, tying the score at 5-5. But with a chance to keep the pressure on in the seventh, Park’s final draw was just too heavy, and the Scots answered with three points of their own to take a three-point lead into the final end. In the eighth, Park had a difficult run-back to score three, but the shot just missed. Instead, the Scots stole a point for the 9-6 win, handing the Canadians their first loss of the competition. On Wednesday, Canada plays Romania’s Iulia Traila and Cristian Matau (1-5) at 2 a.m. ET and Belarus’s Ekaterina Kirillova and Dmitry Kirillov at 11 a.m. ET. The round-robin draws for the World Mixed Doubles will run through to April 23 before the playoffs get underway. There are 30 mixed doubles teams split into three pools of 10. Selected games from the World Mixed Doubles Championship will be streamed live online. Go to the event website, wmdcc2015.curlingevents.com/, to see the games and broadcast schedule.