GENEVA, Switz. — The beat just keeps on keeping on for Team Canada’s Bruce Korte and crew at the World Senior Men’s Curling Championship.
Korte and his Saskatoon Nutana foursome of third Darrell McKee, second Kory Kohuch, lead Rory Golanowski and alternate Arlen Hall battled to a 5-3 victory over Ireland’s Bill Gray in their lone game on Thursday, capping the round robin with a perfect 4-0 record.
Canada came into the 22nd draw knowing that they’d locked down a playoff spot; the victory gave Korte first place in Pool A and sent them directly into the quarter-finals on Friday morning.
As they score would indicate, it was a close game against Ireland, with Canada getting off to a good start with a deuce in the first end before Ireland got the blank and then picked up one in the third. Korte got one back the next end and proceeded to steal single points the next two frames, taking a 5-1 lead with two ends to play.
Gray didn’t go quietly, though, scoring a pair in the seventh to get within striking distance, but Korte would run Ireland out of rocks in the final end to secure the win.
Canada opened the tournament on Sunday with a 16-2 win over Nigeria before downing Slovenia’s Mitja Resman 9-2 on Monday and Latvia’s Ansis Regza 9-4 on Tuesday.
Thanks to that perfect record, Korte receives a bye through the qualification round and will face the winner of Germany’s Uwe Saile and Czechia’s David Sik in their quarter-final matchup at 11 a.m. Saskatchewan time.
Switzerland’s Christof Schwaller, United States’ Mike Farbelow and Scotland’s Tom Brewster also finished in the top four to earn spots in the final eight.
The quarter-final winners advance to the semifinals at 1 a.m. on Saturday, followed by the bronze and gold medal games at 6 a.m. on Saturday.
