SCOTLAND WOMEN WIN GOLD AT WORLD SENIOR CURLING CHAMPIONSHIPS HELD IN DUMFRIES

CURLING: Canada men and Scotland women win World Senior Curling Championships 2014

DUMFRIES, Scotland – Canada men and Scotland women were crowned World Senior Curling Champions 2014 after winning their gold medal games in the Dumfries Ice Bowl in Scotland today.

In front of a packed arena, Canada’s men dominated their gold medal game against Sweden, winning by 7-2 in just six ends, to claim the World Senior Championship title.

The Scottish women on the other hand, had to come from behind to beat Canada by 6-5 to take the gold medals and World Senior Women’s Championship title and gold medals.

On the adjacent sheets, in the bronze medal games, the Australian men beat USA by 6-3, while the USA women beat Sweden by 8-3.

The Canadian men – fourth player Mike Kennedy, skip and third player Wayne Tallon, second Mike Flannery and lead Wade Blanchard (supported by alternate Chuck KIngston and coaches Bill Tschirhart and Jim Waite) – opened with last stone advantage and scored two points in the first end.

Sweden could only respond with a single point in the second end and the Canadians then scored another two points in the third end for a 4-1 lead.

In the fourth end, a last-stone mistake by Swedish skip Connie Ostlund gave Canada a steal of one point and a 5-1 half-time lead.

The Canadians moved further ahead in the fifth end with another steal, this time scoring two points, for a 7-1 lead.

When Sweden could only score one point in the sixth end, they conceded the game and the title, with the score-line at 7-2 in Canada’s favour.

This is the ninth World Senior title for Canada’s men and maintains their run of taking a medal at each of the thirteen World Senior Championships to be staged.

After his win, Canadian skip Wayne Tallon said: “I’m just lost for words. Really ecstatic about it. I’m really happy at how the boys played, they played really hard, so it feels good. It makes it even that much more special having been involved in this Championship last year (as Chair of the World Curling Championships 2013 held in Fredericton, Canada). Last year my responsibility was to ensure everybody had a good time. This year it was to make sure that everyone played well.”

Although he was disappointed, Sweden skip Connie Ostlund was gracious about his opponents. He said: “I am disappointed as we lost the final, but I’m satisfied with the silver medal. The last time we played in 2012 we got a bronze, so this is an improvement. The Canadians were so much better than us, we made too many mistakes and you can’t afford that against this team, they’re good, really good.”

Australia opened the men’s bronze medal game against USA by scoring two points and effectively won the game in the sixth end, with a score of three points that gave them a 6-3 lead.

USA could only blank the seventh end and were run out of stones in the eighth and last end.

This gave Australia a 6-3 win and handed their skip Hugh Millikin his fourth World Senior bronze medal and record 23rd World Curling Federation medal in total.

After the game, Millikin said: “I think we were a little disappointed this year. We were playing pretty well towards the end of the week there. But when you lose the semi (final) and come back and win the bronze you’re pretty happy campers. I’m pretty happy.”

Canada had last stone advantage in their Women’s Senior Championship final against Scotland and used it to blank the first end before opening the scoring in the second end with a draw for two points by their skip Colleen Pinkney.

They moved into a 3-0 lead in the third end when a Scottish mistake let them steal one point.

The Scots got onto the scoreboard in the fourth end, scoring one point. They added to that with a single-point steal in the fifth end when Canada’s Pinkney wrecked her final stone.

This reduced Canada’s lead to 3-2, but they moved ahead again in the sixth end, scoring two points for 5-2.

The Scots fought back and gave themselves hope by scoring two points in the seventh end when skip Christine Cannon’s last stone was swept onto the button.

Going into the eighth and final end, Canada had a one point lead, at 5-4, and last stone advantage.

When she came to play her last stone, Pinkney was facing a collection of Scottish stones in the house and when her attempted draw onto the button wrecked on a front guard, the Scots stole two points, won the game by 6-5 and took the gold medals.

This win by Cannon’s team – third Margaret Richardson, second player Isobel Hannen and lead Janet Lindsay, supported by alternate Margaret Robertson and coach Jackie Lockhart – is the second women’s World Senior Curling Championship title for Scotland. The previous win, at Greenacres in 2005, also took place on Scottish ice.

After the game, Scotland skip Christine Cannon said: “We’re delighted with our win and the way we did it actually makes the victory all the more special. At one stage we felt kind of down and out and then we decided we were going to take the game to them. The girls played really well in the last two ends and keeping them under pressure worked.”

She also acknowledged the atmosphere created by the home crowd, saying: “The support we’ve had all week has been great and there’s been a lot of people cheering for us. It’s nice to give them something back too, it’s incredible.”

Canada’s silver medallist skip Colleen Pinkney said: “We are very disappointed right now but will be happy in a couple of hours. Basically the key was that Scotland had two great last ends and we missed a couple of shots that we couldn’t afford.”

In the women’s bronze medal game, USA opened with a score of two points in the first end. They then took a further a two points in both the third and sixth ends, as well as single-point steals in the fourth and seventh ends, which was enough to give them an 8-3 victory over Sweden.

After her bronze medal win, USA skip Margie Smith said: “We’re very excited. We’ve been here a couple of years and we’ve yet to do this (win a medal). We worked hard, we just needed to stay tough. We were reading the ice well and the girls were throwing the rocks really well so patience was the key.”

Final Standings

Men
1. Canada (Gold)
2. Sweden (Silver)
3. Australia (Bronze)
4. USA
5. England
6. Ireland
7. Scotland
8. Norway
9. Netherlands
10. Germany
11. Finland
12. Denmark
13. Latvia
14. Wales
15. Czech Republic
16. Hungary
17. Switzerland
18. Slovakia
19. Russia
20. Italy
21. Japan
22. New Zealand
23. Austria
24. France
25. Poland

Women:
1. Scotland (Gold)
2. Canada (Silver)
3. USA (Bronze)
4. Sweden
5. Switzerland
6. Slovakia
7. Australia
8. New Zealand
9. Finland
10. Czech Republic
11. Italy
12. England
13. Austria
14. Russia
15. Japan