Canada’s Amber Holland and her Kronau Curling Club team of Kim Schneider, Tammy Schneider and Heather Kalenchuk will go for the gold Sunday in Esbjerg, Denmark after beating China, 8-5 in the semi-final of the Capital One World Women’s Saturday afternoon at the Granly Hockey Arena.
Photo: World Curling Federation
Actually, it was more like stealing their way to the final, as they did earlier in the day when defeating Denmark, 10-7 in the Page 3-4 game, with a theft of three in an extra end.
In the semi-final, after China’s Bingyu Wang, the 2009 world champion, had opened with a deuce, Holland blanked the second, then went on a bit of a run…taking one in the third, then stealing crucial points in next two ends, a single in the fourth and a deuce in the fifth, for a 4-2 lead at the break.
Canada led 6-3 after seven ends, before Wang blanked the eighth and counted two in the ninth to cut the margin to 6-5.
But in the 10th, with China needing to steal just to force an extra, Holland successfully executed a runback with her last stone, taking out the China counter and scoring a not-needed deuce to clinch the game.
Holland will now face Sweden’s Anette Norberg in the final (live on TSN at 10:00 am AT Sunday). Canada has thus clawed its way to the gold medal game, first beating Switzerland Friday in a tiebreaker for fourth, before its two impressive tallies today.