We finally know the four countries that will be competing for gold on the men’s side at the Winter Olympics.
Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs fell to Norway’s Team Magnus Ramsfjell 8-6 on Thursday in what was a win-and–in game for the Norwegians to reach the semifinals. With the loss, the Canadian rink finished the 10-team round-robin at 7-2.
Canada, which was locked into second, will again face Norway in the semis on Thursday at 1:05 p.m. ET / 10:05 a.m. PT (CBC Gem, Sportsnet+).
Entering the final draw on Thursday morning, there were many different playoff scenarios to figure out who the top four teams were going to be with only Canada and Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller qualified.
Four teams, including world No. 1 ranked Great Britain’s Team-Bruce Mouat, which was idle, were gunning for the final two spots. Italy, Norway and the idle U.S. also were in the hunt.
Italy’s 9-5 loss to Switzerland sealed the final spot for Mouat, who will battle the Swiss in the other semi at the same time as the Canada-Norway game.
The first five ends for the Norwegians couldn’t have gone any better as they cruised to a 7-2 lead after Ramsfjell made timely hits to score big ends and limit Canada.
In the second half, things changed as the Norwegians played very sloppy sixth and seventh ends with poor strategic decisions to let Canada score four and make the game 7-6.
However, Norway held on to just barely edge the Canadians.
Canadian spare Tyler Tardi played the full game to keep Ben Hebert, 42, who has been giving it his all on the sweeping front, rested for the semifinal.
In the other game of importance, Italy’s Team Joel Retornaz needed to beat Switzerland to earn its playoff spot, but a massive three-ender in the seventh end by the Swiss ruined any chance the host country had.
Semifinal winners go to the gold-medal game on Saturday and the losers will face off for bronze on Friday.
