CORTINA D’AMPEZZO — A hug that lingered a little longer capped Brett Gallant and Jocelyn Peterman’s Olympic mixed doubles run at the Winter Olympics on Monday.
It was an early goodbye for the husband-and-wife duo from Chestermere, Alta. Gallant and Peterman were expecting much more than to be cut before the four-team playoffs.
A five-game losing streak that finally ended in a meaningless round-robin finale — an 8-4 win over Switzerland — was the undoing of a team that struggled to make the necessary adjustments.
“It just took us a while,” said Canadian coach Scott Pfeifer. “I wish this event was another five or six games because I know that we would have been there in the end.”
Canada (4-5) looked like a contender after opening with three straight wins at Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium. But Gallant and Peterman struggled to get a read on the ice after the rocks were textured on Friday night.
The normal mid-competition process gives the stones more curl. The icemaking crew used caution and underclipped the frozen pebble so that rocks wouldn’t overcurl on Saturday, resulting in a faster, straighter surface on the four sheets.
The Canadians didn’t quite figure things out until Monday when it was too late. A two-loss day on Sunday ended their playoff chances.
A loss to Sweden put Canada in a real bind and a defeat against South Korea sealed it.
A dream 3-0 start had become a 3-5 nightmare. Canada was unable to rediscover its early groove and paid for it with an early exit.
“Just overnight, it seemed like a totally different event,” Pfeifer said. “That’s on us though to figure out what those changes are and unfortunately we were a little slower than a few other teams to pick up on that.”
Over the weekend, Gallant described the ice as “kind of like going from your municipal golf course (to) the greens at the U.S. Open.”
He doubled down on that on Monday.
“We should have went to the bowling alley and played a couple frames mid-week because that would have helped us the way the ice was,” he said.
Playing on ice that doesn’t curl as much forces players to adjust their technical approach. Slide lines and release techniques may need to be changed.
“I would say the ice conditions so far this week have been good and within the parameters for international championship ice,” World Curling’s communications and marketing chief Chris Hamilton said in an email.
“The quality of the shotmaking from our athletes would also suggest that.”
The Canadian duo seemed more comfortable against Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller and Briar Schwaller-Huerlimann. Canada scored three points in the seventh end and ran the Swiss pair out of rocks in the eighth.
“It was just a good feeling because we were pretty deflated after yesterday,” Gallant said.
Switzerland also missed the playoffs at 4-5.
Pfeifer said he felt the consistency “wasn’t there on all four sheets,” but that the Canadian team was fully prepared for the event.
“It wasn’t like they were skipping exams,” he said. “We were sitting in our room in the mornings looking at the sheet shape and working on our releases in pre-game practice, like all the right things.
“I just think from a mental perspective, we just didn’t buy in as quickly as we needed to.”
Gallant took a deep breath as he reflected on a weekend that got away.
“We don’t (usually) play on ice that’s that straight in the middle,” he said. “It’s tough to rearrange the angles and some teams did it better than us. And that’s just the way it went.”
The team’s result extended the country’s Olympic title drought.
Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris won gold when mixed doubles made its Olympic debut at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games in South Korea. Rachel Homan and Morris missed the playoffs at the 2022 Games in Beijing.
“It’s tough right now,” Peterman said. “Obviously there’s a lot of disappointment and a lot of hurt. I hope when that’s not as fresh that we can be proud of how we fought out there.”
Canada hasn’t won Olympic gold in four-player team play since the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. Brad Jacobs won the men’s title that year and Jennifer Jones took the women’s crown.
Jacobs will return this week with a different team while Homan is skipping the Canadian women’s rink. Gallant will get another crack at it as the second for Jacobs’ Calgary-based side.
“The boys are really excited to get in here,” Gallant said. “So that’s going to be probably some energy that I need right now, some good positive vibes and some excitement.
“It’s a bit of a pivot, but a fresh start is something to look forward to for myself.”
MEDAL GAMES SET
The United States will face Sweden in the gold-medal game Tuesday, with Great Britain and Italy meeting in the bronze match.
The Americans reached the final by edging Italy’s defending champions Amos Mosaner and Stefania Constantini 9-8 in a semifinal Monday night, avenging a 7-6 loss earlier in the day that left both teams tied at 6-3 after round-robin play.
Sweden advanced with a 9-3 upset of Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds, who had finished atop the standings at 8-1.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 9, 2026.
Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press
