Canada Wins 2011 Ford Men's Curling Championship Over Scotland

Apr 10, 2011
Chris Istace

Canada's Jeff Stoughton lost one game on his way to his second world curling championship. - Wikimedia

Canadian skip Jeff Stoughton wins his second world curling championship with a 6-5 victory over Scotland's Tom Brewster rink. Sweden earns bronze.

For Jeff Stoughton, history would not repeat itself.

The 2011 Canadian National Team skip last appeared in the World Curling Federation's world championship in 1999, where he collected a silver medal after losing in the gold-medal final to Scotland.

Twelve years later, Stoughton returned to the international stage with his Manitoban team's appearance at the 2011 Ford World Men's Curling Championship in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Once again, only a Scottish team stood between him and a gold medal.

Stoughton earned Canada it's seventh world curling title in 10 years with a 6-5 victory over Aberdeen, Scotland skip Tom Brewster on Sunday, April 10, 2011. The gold medal was Stoughton's second as a skip after first winning the tournament in 1996.

Canada Responds After Early-end Deficit

Canada opened the match with last rock, but only managed a single point.

The teams blanked the second end, but Canada seemed to be setting up their game by way of shot making. The rink had a 93 per cent average early on, while Scotland's front-half shooters seemed to struggle. Scotland lead Michael Goodfellow and second Scott Andrews both posted percentages of 71 after four rocks each, pulling the team's average down to 78 per cent.

Nevertheless, Brewster pulled a double out of the third end then stole a single point in the fourth to take a 3-1 advantage.

Stoughton - who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - replied with three points in the fifth and never looked back. Canada held Scotland to just a single in the sixth to tie the game at four. It stayed that way until the eighth end, when Canada scored a pair and backed it up in the ninth by allowing Brewster only one.

Team Canada held both a 6-5 lead and last rock advantage to close the 10th and final end. The Stoughton rink simply ran Brewster's squad out of opportunities to score.

The Stoughton-led rink included Jon Mead at third, Reid Carruthers at second and Steve Gould shooting lead.

However, it was Stoughton who would prove most effective in both the tournament and the gold-medal final. He was first among skips in shooting percentages throughout the tournament, and in the final match, laid down a 93 per cent average.

In round robin play leading up to the world curling championship playoffs, Canada lost their only match against Norway on the final night of preliminary play, giving them 10 wins and one loss for first place.

Canada earned a berth to the gold-medal final by defeating Scotland in the 1-2 Page Playoff game.

Scotland's Brewster rink, meanwhile, earned a spot in the championship final via a second-place finish in the round robin portion of the tournament. There, they collected nine wins and two losses, one being a 7-3 defeat to Canada on April 5, 2011.

After losing to Stoughton's rink again in the 1-2 Page Playoff game three days later, Brewster rebounded with a tightly contested 7-6 victory over Thomas Ulsrud of Norway. The game required an extra end to decide it.

Sweden earns bronze at world curling championships

In the 2011 Ford World Men's Curling Championship's bronze medal final, Sweden rebounded earlier losses to Norway to finish third. They defeated the Norwegians 7-6 in a game that had the two teams trade points through most of the match.

However, Swede skip Niklas Edin - who led a team that also included Sebastian Kraupp, Fredrik Lindberg and Viktor Kjall - was successful on a simple draw for the single, game-winning point.

Sweden posted the third-best record in the tournament's round robin session with seven wins and four losses through 11 games.

Ulsrud's Norway rink had defeated Sweden on two previous meetings in the tournament; an 8-5 victory in round robin play on April 4, 2011, and a 7-2 win in the 3-4 Page Playoff game four days later which eliminated Sweden from gold medal contention.

Norway, which also included Torger Nergard, Christoffer Svae and Harvard Vad Petersson, was bumped to the bronze medal final by losing to Scotland in the championship's semi-final.

The 2011 Ford World Men's Curling Championship was held in Regina, Saskatchewan's Brandt Centre at Evraz Place from April 2 to 10, 2011. The tournament hosted 12 teams, including representatives from the United States, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Korea, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and Switzerland.