CORTINA d’AMPEZZO, Italy — With a 6-3 victory over Team South Korea Thursday morning and a 7-3 win over Team U.S.A. in the evening, Team Canada made history as the first wheelchair curling team to complete the Paralympic Games round robin with an undefeated record.
The Canadian contingent of skip Mark Ideson (London, Ont.); vice-skip/third Jon Thurston (Dunsford, Ont.); second Ina Forrest (Spallumcheen, B.C.); and lead Collinda Joseph (Ottawa) wrapped up the round robin 9-0 and secured the top spot in the standings at the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Games.
Thursday morning’s game against Team South Korea was crucial. Canada went into the day knowing a win was a must in order to secure its spot at No. 1, and for it to come in the first game of the day took some pressure off.
“It feels great; that was huge,” said Thurston. “This gives us an edge going into playoffs. We wanted to be seated as high as we could. So, we’re really, really happy with that.”
The road to that victory didn’t come easily for the Canadians. While the first half saw several errors by the Korean skip to help Canada along to a few extra points, the real battle came in the second half after a key substitution for Team South Korea.
It was 4-2 for Team Canada headed into the sixth end. With lots of rocks in play, Korean skip Bong Kwang Nam made a key double takeout to force Ideson to make a precise draw to the button. Ideson’s last throw undercurled to give up a steal of one.
The seventh end looked quite different, with Ideson staring down an open house for his last throw. The Canadians decided to draw for one to head into the eighth end, 5-3, without hammer.
“The win probability is better for us to be up by two points without the hammer than it is to be up by one point with the hammer,” said Thurston. “Plus, without hammer, we get to dictate the start of the end a little better. So, we liked going into the eighth end the way we did.”
Team South Korea certainly applied pressure to try and force an extra end. With three Korean stones buried behind a corner, Thurston played a come-around freeze to remove the chance of a deuce. Bong Kwang Nam looked to tap Thurston’s stone, but it wasn’t enough and eventually led to the win for Canada.
“I was fortunate to make that draw to cut them down, and ultimately, it was great to steal one there and win the game,” said Thurston. “It was a great game out there. It’s nice to get those strong opponents to sharpen our game in round-robin to try and build and be our strongest going into the [playoffs]. South Korea played a great game against us. We were able to keep an advantage on the scoreboard through the game, but they put a lot of pressure on us in the eighth.”
With that win under their belts, the Canadians looked to their evening game against Team U.S.A. to make Paralympic history as the first team to ever go undefeated in the round-robin.
In the fourth end, looking to surpass the Canadians on the scoreboard, American skip Matthew Thums promoted his own stone for a takeout to warrant a huge reaction from the American cheering section. But Ideson drew around it and earned an even bigger cheer from the Canadian fans.
In the sixth end, Ideson made two key draws around a pile at the top of the house to finish the sixth end with a steal of two and pushed Team Canada just too far out of reach for the Americans.
“It’s a long week, and it’s a gruelling week, and you always expect that there’s going to be a few bad games, and to be fair, there was, but we stuck with it, we worked through it, and didn’t give up,” said Ideson of the team’s undefeated run. “We stuck to our processes and made a few shots when we needed to.
“There are five players out there, and we have six incredible staff that have been working hard behind the scenes to help us prepare the best we can to do our best out on the ice. We felt really supported all week by our friends and family and put ourselves in a good situation to hopefully get on the podium again.”
On the next sheet over, Team Italy and Team South Korea were battling for the final spot in the playoffs. South Korea was victorious with a 6-5 result and will meet Team Canada in Friday morning’s semifinal at 5:05 a.m. (all times Eastern). The winner moves on to the gold-medal game Saturday at 10:05 a.m., while the loser competes for bronze Friday at 1:35 p.m.
Team Canada also includes fifth Gilbert Dash (Kipling, Sask.); coaches Mick Lizmore and Dana Ferguson; team leader Kyle Paquette; team physiotherapist Sari Shatil; team physician Dr. Steven Macaluso; performance science lead Kyle Turcotte; and family and friends coordinator Wendy Morgan.
Team China and Team Sweden will meet in the other semifinal on Friday morning.
For live scoring, team lineups, and standings, CLICK HERE.
All of Canada’s games will be broadcast on a variety of platforms by CBC, the official Paralympic rights-holder in Canada. CLICK HERE for the CBC broadcast schedule.
This story will be posted in French as soon as possible at https://www.curling.ca/fr/nouvelles-media/
