Team Canada suffers emotional loss as time at worlds expires

It was a hard-fought tournament for the Canadians at the 2024 World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship at Gangneung Curling Centre in Gangneung, South Korea, but in the end, it just wasn’t their week.

Any hope of making the playoffs had already passed for Team Canada, which consists of players Collinda Joseph and Dennis Thiessen, head coach Dana Ferguson, and team leader Kyle Turcotte, before its final game against the United States (Matthew Thums and Batoyun Uranchimeg). But that didn’t stop Canada from giving everything it had left in the tank.

Joseph and Thiessen played their best collective game of the tournament—generating offence and preventing most counter-attacks—and earned a one-point lead coming home with hammer. But Joseph’s last rock missed both American stones in the rings and went out the back as the United States stole two to win.

It was an uncharacteristic miss, and evidence that no matter what they tried or how hard they fought, a playoff run just wasn’t in the cards for the Canadians.

“Yeah, we didn’t quite make it the week we wanted it to be,” said Thiessen. “But we really appreciate all the fans and family back home. Thank you for cheering us on.”

Canada’s 2-4 record means it won’t have the chance to vie for a medal at the tournament.

Latvia (Polina Rozkova and Agris Lasmans) will look to defend its title from last year’s gold medal finish at worlds in Richmond, B.C. Meanwhile, the United States stays intent on upgrading its silver from 2023 to gold this year, as it was the only team to go undefeated in the group stage. The other six playoff teams have yet to finish on the podium at a world wheelchair mixed doubles championship.

The playoff bracket is as follows:

• 1 – United States vs. 8 – Japan
• 2 – Korea vs. 7 – Estonia
• 3 – Slovakia vs. 6 – Italy
• 4 – China vs. 5 – Latvia

Playoff games begin Thursday at 9 p.m. ET with winners advancing to the semi-finals Friday at 4 a.m. ET.

The gold and bronze medal games take place Friday at 9 p.m. ET.

All games will be available to watch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@curling1.

For live scores, standings, and statistics for the 2024 World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, go to https://livescores.worldcurling.org/wwhcc/.

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