Two-win Wednesday sees Canada clinch qualification berth at 2022 World Mixed Curling Championship

Team Canada completed the first step in its podium aspirations by clinching a playoff berth at the 2022 World Mixed Curling Championship in Aberdeen, Scotland on Wednesday.

With a 7-4 win over Portugal (2-5; Bridget Ribau) followed by defeating Hong Kong (3-4; Jason Chang) by an 8-3 score, the Canadian foursome of skip Jean-Michel Ménard, third Marie-France Larouche, second Ian Belleau, lead Annie Lemay and coach Eric Sylvain (6-1; Etchemin/Des Collines, Québec) is now guaranteed a playoff qualification berth at minimum.

The strong performance saw Canada extend its winning streak to five games thanks to some aggressive strategy that generated large offensive scores with the hammer.

Canada only posted points in two ends versus Portugal by way of a three in the third end and a four in the sixth end, but it was more than enough to claim a 7-4 victory.

Meanwhile, Ménard and company scored early and often versus Hong Kong maintaining a 4-2 lead after four ends before ripping a steal of four in the fifth to extend the lead to 8-2. Hong Kong would concede an 8-3 final score after only scoring a single point in the sixth.

Offense may have won the day for Canada on Wednesday, but keen defense certainly bolstered the Canadian effort as the team never surrendered more than a single point in an end to their opposition.

Canada, who currently hold the second place spot in Group A, could still finish first the round robin standings but currently trail to the interim leader Finland (6-0; Markus Sipila). Canada would need to finish strong with a win in their upcoming final round robin match versus Slovenia (2-4; Stefan Sever) at 3 p.m. (all times Eastern) and see Finland lose its final two matches versus Slovenia and Korea (4-2; Dae-hyun Kim) to claim first overall in Group A.

At the conclusion of round robin play, each of the four group’s top finishers receive a bye to a quarterfinal, while the second and third place finishers will play in an elimination qualification match with the winner proceeding to a quarterfinal.

The qualification matches will take place Friday at 5 a.m. with the quarterfinals following at 1 p.m. on the same day.

The winners of the quarterfinals will play in the semifinals on Saturday at 4:30 a.m with the medal games following at 9:30 a.m.

Draw, live scoring, rosters and more information are available here: https://worldcurling.org/events/wmxcc2022

World Curling TV will provide static camera coverage of all games on the Curling Channel.

This story will be available in French as soon as possible here: https://www.curling.ca/category-all-posts-fr/?lang=fr