(by Al Cameron)
The 12-country field for the 2015 Ford World Men’s Curling Championship is now complete.
The United States clinched the final berth into the Ford Worlds, March 28-April 6 at Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, on Saturday in Blaine, Minn., completing a three-game sweep of Brazil in the best-of-five Americas Zone Challenge.
Sarnia, Ont., native and former Canadian mixed runner-up Heath McCormick skipped the U.S. team to three straight victories over Brazil’s Marcelo Mello, completing the sweep Saturday night with a 9-3 victory.
Team Canada — the winner of the 2015 Tim Hortons Brier, presented by SecurTek Monitoring Solutions, Feb. 28-March 8 in Calgary — will open the 2015 Ford Worlds against the U.S. representative, which will be decided at that country’s national championships in Kalamazoo, Mich. The Canada-U.S. game is scheduled for Saturday, March 28, at 7:30 p.m. AST.
The other qualified countries (representative teams will be named in the next few weeks) besides Canada and the U.S. are China, the Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Russia, Scotland, Sweden and Switzerland.
The top four teams following round-robin play in Halifax will advance to the Page playoffs, with the first- and second-place teams meeting for a berth in the gold-medal game, while the third- and fourth-place teams meet, with the winner advancing to the semifinal and the loser dropping to the bronze-medal game.
TSN and RDS2 (French), the official broadcast partners of the Canadian Curling Association’s Season of Champions, will televise all of Team Canada’s games.
Here is the remainder of Canada’s round-robin schedule, along with the playoff times, at the 2015 Ford Worlds:
March 30, 9:30 a.m. — Canada vs. Czech Republic
March 30, 7:30 p.m. — Canada vs. Russia
March 31, 2:30 p.m. — Canada vs. Japan
March 31, 7:30 p.m. — Canada vs. Norway
April 1, 9:30 a.m. — Canada vs. Switzerland
April 1, 7:30 p.m. — Canada vs. Scotland
April 2, 9:30 a.m. — Canada vs. Finland
April 2, 2:30 p.m. — Canada vs. Italy
April 3, 9:30 a.m. — Tiebreaker, if necessary
April 3, 2:30 p.m. — Tiebreaker, if necessary
April 3, 7:30 p.m. — Page playoffs, 1 vs. 2, or 3 vs. 4
April 4, 2:30 p.m. — Page playoffs, 1 vs. 2, or 3 vs. 4
April 4, 7:30 p.m. — Semifinal
April 5, 10 a.m. — Bronze-medal game
April 5, 4 p.m. — Gold-medal game
To purchase tickets, go to http://www.curling.ca/2015worldmen-en/tickets/
For the complete event schedule, go to http://www.curling.ca/2015worldmen-en/draw-schedule/