There will be a new champion at this year’s world men’s curling championship.
Canada’s Brad Gushue eliminated four-time defending champion Niklas Edin of Sweden with a 9-1 rout in a qualification game Saturday afternoon at TD Place in Ottawa.
“That certainly went a little more lopsided than we anticipated today,” Gushue said. “But we were making some more shots and I think they felt a little bit of urgency to push a little harder than they probably needed to.
“It created some opportunities for us.”
WATCH | Gushue leads Canada past Sweden in qualification game:
Brad Gushue delivers a clutch performance in Ottawa to lead Canada past Sweden 9-1 and into a semifinal match up against Switzerland.
St. John’s skip Gushue and teammates Mark Nichols, E.J. Harnden and Geoff Walker were scheduled to play top-seeded Yannick Schwaller of Switzerland in an evening semifinal.
Schwaller earned a bye to the final four after leading the 13-team field in round-robin play at 11-1.
Second-seeded Bruce Mouat of Scotland picked up the other direct semifinal berth. Mouat will next play Joel Retornaz after his Italian side dispatched Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell 8-4 in the other qualification game.
Gushue started with hammer as the No. 4 seed and used it to score two with a draw in the opening end. Canada forced Sweden in the second and blanked the next two ends before Gushue made an error in the fifth.
He caught a stone thick on a blank attempt to make it 3-1. Sweden had a shot for three in the sixth end but Edin rubbed his own stone and gave up a steal.
A desperation runback-triple in the seventh was wide, giving Gushue three more stolen points.
Edin, the reigning Olympic champion, has won six world men’s titles over his career. He beat Gushue in last year’s final in Las Vegas.
“We can’t be too disappointed,” Edin said. “We’ve had a few really good years. A lot of them actually.”
Semifinal winners will play for gold Sunday afternoon and the losing teams will meet for bronze in the morning session.
Gushue has settled for silver in his last two appearances at this competition. The 2006 Olympic champion won his lone world title in 2017 at Edmonton.
Kerri Einarson skipped Canada to a bronze medal at last month’s world women’s curling championship in Sandviken, Sweden.
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