LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — A bit of untimely misfortune played a role in dashing Kevin Koe’s dream of winning a world men’s curling championship for the first time on home soil.
After proving once again to be the world’s most spectacular shot-maker all week at the Enmax Centre, Koe’s run for a third world championship gold medal ended with a bad mistake in the eighth end of the final against Sweden’s Niklas Edin.
Koe had control of the game, tied up with hammer in the even end, but his last rock draw came up light and gave Edin a steal of two points that paved the way for his record-tying fourth world championship gold medal as a skip.
Sweden wound up winning 7-2 after stealing three more points in the ninth end, after which the Canadians shook hands.
Koe’s blunder came after there was a five-minute delay in the game because the handle on Edin’s last rock was broken and needed to be repaired.
Though Edin still executed a perfect double-and-stick behind cover to force Koe to try a draw to the pin for one point, the Canadian skip had to attempt a much more delicate shot and the rock appeared to fudge up in frost that accumulated during the delay.
“It was too bad what happened there before Kevin’s draw,” Canadian lead Ben Hebert said. “That’s a bit of a joke. A (five-minute) delay and the ice sits. When the ice sits it gets slower. It’s nobody’s fault, the handle was broken.
“Kevin threw it perfect, timed it exactly the way we wanted it the whole week. And then we just lost it a little bit because the frost was creeping in.
“It’s not an excuse, it was just unfortunate it had to happen like that. They played good, they deserved to win and they’re obviously a good championship team.”
Edin, who joined Canada’s Ernie Richardson as the only skip to have won four world championship gold medals, wasn’t happy about the delay either.
“Honestly, I’ve never been that nervous in my whole life,” Edin said. “It was not a welcome delay. I was just trying clear my head and make a good slide and that worked out, so a bit of luck there, but definitely not a great feeling before the handle was fixed.”
Koe, and Calgary-based teammates B.J. Neufeld, Colton Flasch and Hebert had an outstanding first season together, winning the Alberta provincial championship, going undefeated in the Brier in Brandon and making it all the way to the world final before settling for a silver medal.
Looking back, it will likely be a satisfying year for the foursome, but in the immediate aftermath of the game, Koe wasn’t thinking that way.
“This one will hurt for a while,” Koe said.
“It sucks. We wrestled away control and we were tied up playing eight and you should win after that more than you lose. To give up a steal of two, you’re gonna lose most of the time after that, so that was the big turning point.”
Koe did not want it to sound like sour grapes, but acknowledged the delay was problematic in the eighth end.
“There’s nothing you can do,” he said. “I felt fine, it’s just that you don’t know what the ice has done. We got a perfect time, which, with those two sweepers, should never have been an issue. You never know if that mattered or not, but it definitely didn’t help, that’s for sure.”
Edin, third Oskar Eriksson, second Rasmus Wranaa and lead Christoffer Sundgren proved once again to be the finest men’s curling team on the planet, defending the title they won in Las Vegas last year.
They are the world’s most consistent curlers, a team with a tremendous front end, a high-percentage vice and a cool, calm and calculated skip who can make all the shots. Sweden went 11-1 in the round-robin and took two more playoff games against strong opposition to win it all.
“It feels amazing,” Edin said. “This was probably the sweetest win of my career. We’ve never played better than this for an event, it felt like we were dominating the whole week.”
For much of the week and the final, the Canadians seemed like the team of destiny, however. Koe put in a magical performance and thrilled the home-province crowd throughout the tournament with highlight-reel shots and edge-of-the-seat moments.
He made an incredible in-off for a win against the United States, a quadruple kill in the semifinal against Switzerland and at least a dozen doubles and runbacks that many skips wouldn’t even try.
TSN’s Vic Rauter referred to Canada’s skip as “Koedini” at one point because he was making so many big shots to escape bad situations.
Unfortunately, there weren’t enough tricks in the bag to get past the great Edin, who is achieving legendary status at the tender age of 33.
That allowed Koe to look at things philosophically.
“Win the Brier and second in the world championship — you can only ask for one more thing, right?” Koe said. “That’s to win that game. But second best this year, it’s a pretty good accomplishment for this team. It’s just hard to put it in perspective right now. We really wanted to win this, and it’s a little deflating the way it all ended.”
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
