On a night when it was needed most, Team Canada delivered its most complete performance to date at the 2021 BKT Tires & OK Tire World Men’s Curling Championship, presented by New Holland.

Thursday night at WinSport Arena at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Brendan Bottcher’s Edmonton team put together a near-flawless 10 ends of curling en route to a 6-4 win over Norway’s Steffen Walstad (7-5).

Team Canada skip Brendan Bottcher delivers a shot during Thursday night’s victory. (Photo, Curling Canada/Michael Burns)

With the win, Bottcher, vice-skip Darren Moulding, second Brad Thiessen, lead Karrick Martin, alternate Marc Kennedy, team support Patrick Janssen, team coach Don Bartlett and national coach Jeff Stoughton improved to 8-4 in the 14-team round-robin standings and officially locked up a spot in the playoffs, which get underway on Friday night — an accomplishment that wasn’t confirmed until well after the game ended following some number-crunching by the World Curling Federation.

Equally significant was that the playoff spot secures a berth for a Canadian in the men’s curling competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

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