Canada clinches playoff spot with near flawless effort against Germany

Talk about having a short memory.

It didn’t take long for Canada to bounce back and punch its ticket into the playoffs at the world women’s curling championship in Prince George following an 8-5 win over Germany this morning (Friday).

A trio of deuces in ends three, five, and seven propelled them to an 8-3 record, in a tie with Sweden and Korea for second place in the round-robin standings.

One of the key shots of the game came in the seventh, where skip Kerri Einarson executed a double takeout to go up 7-3.

German skip Daniela Jentsch recorded two in the eighth, which was followed up by a Canadian single in the ninth.

Einarson’s Manitoba-based rink out of the Gimli Curling Club has now qualified for the playoffs at the world’s for the second consecutive year. However, she told the media post-game, it was a much smoother road this time around.

“Definitely a lot less stressful. Our backs were not up against the wall from day one like they were last year. We have a good handle on the ice, we are making good reads and girls are throwing really well so that makes my job easy.”

Every Canadian player curled 89% or higher with vice-skip Val Sweeting leading the way  (98%).

After last night’s heartbreaking loss to South Korea, Einarson noted there was very little that needed to be said heading into their last two games.

“I sat down with the team last night and said we do not need to talk about what happened. We parked it and then had a drink.”

After a 2-2 start, Canada has gone 6-1 in its last seven games – Einarson is proud of the way her team has battled all week in the northern capital.

“We’ve shown a lot of grit and we just really grinded through the round-robin. We have been getting better and better – last night was a bit of a hiccup but we came firing today and we parked it.

Switzerland (11-0) with its first-place finish in the round-robin has punched its ticket to the semi-finals Saturday night.

This morning (Friday), the Swiss only needed six ends to dispatch a three-player Japan team by an 11-3 score.

Lead Melanie Barbezat told mypgnow.com the Zurich-based team led by skip Silvana Tirinzoni is trying to keep everybody fresh during these last two games.

“We are in a really good form right now and we want to make sure that we keep playing well while also trying to rest a little.”

“We have been playing together now for four years and have worked really hard. You can see the communication is very good since it’s loud. We are in a good place.”

Subsequently, the Japanese (6-6) opted out of its final game against Korea due to a number of COVID-19 cases detected among the team/delegation this morning.

Elsewhere, Norway (5-6) fell 11-4 in eight ends to Denmark (7-4).

Speaking of the Norwegians, their tournament wraps this afternoon against Anna Hasselborg and Sweden.

The Danes on the other hand, end their slate of preliminary games tonight at 7:00 against the United States (7-4).

With Japan unable to finish, all six playoff spots have been decided as Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Korea, United States, and Denmark move on to the weekend.

Sweden, Canada, and Korea are battling for second place and a bye into the semis.

Tonight at 7:00, Canada plays the (2-8) Czech Republic and Korea takes on (2-9) Turkey.

Qualification games go Saturday at 1:00 p.m. with the semi-finals Saturday night at 7:00.

Medal games hit the ice Sunday at 11:00 a.m. (for bronze) and 4:00 p.m. (for gold).

The full standings can be found here.

The full schedule and results are right here.

– Files by Brendan Pawliw with files from Hartley Miller