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Brad Gushue and Canada lost in extremis to Sweden (5-3) in the semifinals on Thursday, and they will have to settle for the bronze medal match against the United States.
Sweden joined favorites Great Britain in the final, beating the Americans 8-4.
Sweden scored the first point in the second end, and Canada immediately responded in the same way.
In the fourth end, Gushue couldn’t perform a very complex double takeout on his last stone, conceding 2 more points to his opponents who had the hammer.
In the fifth, thanks to two successful field goals in a row, Gushue tied the game at 3-3.
After canceling the score in the next two sets, the Swedes added 1 point to lead 4-3.
Gushue then insisted on playing a draw to retain the hammer in the final set, merely clearing Sweden’s only stone that was in play while ricocheting his own to do so.
This strategy almost paid off, but a bad throw on Gushue’s penultimate stone then allowed Sweden to put theirs in scoring position. The Canadian went all out on a climb with a high difficulty coefficient which ultimately failed.
“I liked our chances of winning (with our fate) in our hands. We took a chance and narrowly missed,” analyzed the Canadian skip,
Earlier today, Gushue concluded the preliminary round of the men’s tournament with a 5-2 loss to Great Britain.
Both countries were already guaranteed a place in the playoffs and the Canadians couldn’t finish anywhere but in third place.
