VANCOUVER (World Curling Federation)– Norway’s Rasmus Stjerne won a wild 9-6 game over Norway’s Kristian Rolvsjord to secure the second of four men’s playoff berths at the 2009 World Junior Curling Championships.

 Stjerne, playing in his sixth and final World Juniors, lead 4-0 after the first three ends only to see Norway score six unanswered points over the next three ends. The Danes then scored five straight points over the following three ends, whereupon Norway conceded.

 “That was ups and downs,” said Stjerne.

 “I think we came out in front too early, and we really struggled just to keep it simple. They did a really good job of forcing us to play the draw game.”

 Denmark is now 6-2 and through to Saturday’s Page playoff round. Norway fell to 4-5.

 Canada’s Brett Gallant moved to 8-1 by scored three points in the fifth end en route to a 9-3 win over Chris Plays of the United States.

 Plys, the defending world junior men’s champion, is 5-3 along with Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson. The Americans meet China’s Jialiang Zang (3-5) in Thursday night’s final round robin draw, while Sweden, the 2008 silver medalists, take on Canada.

 Switzerland is at 4-4, Scotland is 3-5, Russia is 2-6 and Germany is 1-7.

 In late Wednesday night women’s action, Scotland’s Eve Muirhead, the two-time defending women’s champions, defeated Anna Kubeskova of the Czech Republic 8-4 and Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa was an 8-6 winner of France’s Marie Coulot.

 With the final women’s round robin draw set for Thursday afternoon, all four playoff teams have already been decided: Scotland, Canada (Kaitlyn Lawes), Switzerland (Martina Baumann) and Russia (Margarita Fomina).

 The Vancouver Olympic Centre will play host to the 2010 Olympic curling and Paralympic Wheelchair curling competitions.