World Men's Curling Championship 2015: Daily Results, Updated Schedule and More

The world’s best curling teams have descended on Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the 2015 World Men’s Curling Championship.

The 12-team event started Saturday, March 28 and continues until Sunday, April 5 at the Scotiabank Centre.

The main storyline will be the rest of the teams trying to find a way to compete against Canada’s overall domination of this event. Skip Pat Simmons will lead the host nation as Canada tries to win a leading 35th world title. The world championship has only been going on for 56 years, which puts that run of success in perspective.

Canada also has nine silver medals and six bronze medals to go along with the 34 golds.

Despite Canada’s historical success, skip Thomas Ulsrud and his Norway team won the world championship last year, and Niklas Edin of Sweden won it in 2013. Simmons will certainly have his hands full as he tries to add another chapter to Canada’s illustrious curling history.

Check back here throughout the competition for schedule information and daily updates as the world championship continues.

The world championship takes place from March 28–April 5 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Click here for the full schedule, courtesy of the event’s official website.

Here is a detailed explanation of the late rounds and entire scheduling process, courtesy of the event’s official website:

Round-robin play will continue until Thursday, with the top four teams advancing to the Page playoffs, which see the first-and-second place teams playing for a berth in the April 5 gold-medal game (4 p.m.).

The loser of the one-two game drops to the semifinal (April 4, 7:30 p.m.) against the winner of the Page three-four game. The semifinal loser and Page three-four loser will play for the bronze medal on April 5 at 10 a.m.

April 5 Results

Gold: Sweden def. Norway, 9-5

Bronze: Canada def. Finland, 8-4

A year ago, Norway took down Sweden to ruin the Swedes' run at back-to-back championships. Sweden paid Norway back on Sunday, earning a 9-5 triumph in the gold medal match to take home their seventh World Championship.

Led by Niklas Edin, Sweden scored three points in the first, third and seventh ends on a day where they were extremely hit or miss. Ahead 3-0 after a strong first end, Sweden allowed Norway to tie the contest after three ends, as the Norwegians battled back with one in the second and two in the third. But every time Norway appeared to be making it close, Sweden came through with huge ends to regain the lead.

After a scoreless fourth, Edin took advantage of a wide-open opportunity to score three in the fifth and gave his country the lead for good. Curling Canada commented on the ease with which he converted the points:

No problem for Niklas. He lobs it in for 3, and takes the 3-point lead to the 5th end break. #curling #FWMCC

— Curling Canada (@CurlingCanada) April 5, 2015

Though Norway came back with a point in the sixth, Edin all but closed out the match with another three-point end in the seventh. Sweden was able to get a point in the eighth, but the damage was already done.

In the day's other matchup, Canada atoned for a semifinals loss to Sweden by dominating Finland. The host country opened up a 5-1 lead over the first four ends and rode out an easy win the rest of the way.

“We definitely wanted to come out and not completely leave here without anything,” Nolan Thiessen said, per Curling Canada. “We did that last year and it was the worst flight ever, an 18-hour flight of hell. Today we found a way. We struggled a bit early but Pat made that great hit and roll in the second and that propelled us forward.”

The win gave Canada the seventh world championship bronze in history.

April 4 Results

Page Playoffs: (3) Sweden def. (4) Finland, 7-4

Semifinals: (3) Sweden def. (2) Canada, 6-3 

Recap

Sweden advances to the semifinals after a strong showing against Finland. The third seed never trailed in the match after grabbing a point in the opening end en route to the 7-4 victory.

It was a low-scoring contest until the sixth end when the sides started trading points at a furious pace. The Niklas Edin-led group was finally able to grab firm control by holding Finland to just one point in the ninth and held on for the victory.

Curling Canada noted the result:

He makes it and Sweden will move on to face Canada in the semifinal tonight. Finland will play for bronze. #curling #fwmcc

— Curling Canada (@CurlingCanada) April 4, 2015

Sweden advanced to face Canada in the semifinals later Saturday, continuing its trek with a strong upset victory. The Swedes were again strong throughout the match, building an early lead and never trailing en route to a 6-3 triumph. The triumph atones for Pat Simmons and Co.'s victory in the round-robin match and sends the host country home a round earlier than they expected.

Curling Canada noted how unbelievably accurate Sweden was throughout the match:

Sweden's @team_edin shooting percentages tonight. Fairly solid. #curling #FWMCC #onfire pic.twitter.com/GTQgmrO1cl

— Curling Canada (@CurlingCanada) April 5, 2015

Canada will play Sunday for a chance at bronze. Sweden will play the top-seeded Norwegian squad. Norway is the defending champion of the event and led by Thomas Ulsrud, who has been dominant over the last week.

Sweden will also be looking to atone for their loss in last year's final. The Swedes last won in 2013, their sixth overall world championship. 

April 3 Results

A light day of action at the Curling Championships saw Finland knock off the United States in a tense 6-5 battle during the tiebreaker round. Aku Kauste was the hero for Finland, securing the final point on the last shot. 

Kauste said after the match, via John Korobanik of Curling.ca, that he was fighting nerves during that shot but didn't allow it to alter his approach:

“I can’t be too light because the brushers can’t drag it there too far. Still I was kind of heavy. That’s the tendency under pressure... Some very unlucky breaks on both sides I would say. The one where we took our own out and ended up drawing against four (in the seventh). I was two millimetres off from a perfect shot and they would have been in huge trouble.

Curling is often a game of inches, so if given the chance to do that shot again, Kauste could have pushed it too hard allowing the United States a chance to win. As it stands, Finland advances to face Sweden on Saturday in the second Page Playoff game. 

The first Page Playoff game saw the top two teams from round robin play, Norway and Canada, lock horns. They each went 10-1, with Norway defeating Canada on Mach 31, prior to today's matchup. It managed to top the Finland-USA match in terms of excitement. 

Canada was up 5-4 after its eighth shot, but Finland came back with two points in the ninth end to take a 6-5 lead. With all the pressure on them, Team Canada secured one point in the 10th to send the match into overtime, but Norway got the point in the 11th end to advance to the gold medal game on Sunday. 

Despite the loss, there's hope for Canada. It will play a semifinal match against the winner of Sweden vs. Finland on Saturday night with the hopes of getting one more crack at Norway for the championship. 

April 2 Results

It's Norway, it's Canada, and it's everyone else.

The Norwegians and Canadians finished atop the round-robin portion of the tournament in first and second place, respectively, as each side finished 10-1. Italy made things a bit interesting for Canada mid-day and Japan did the same for Norway in the morning, but ultimately the top two teams made it through the day unblemished. 

That sets up a fascinating matchup between the two countries on Friday, with the Canadians looking to avenge an earlier loss to Norway.

The United States has had a solid tournament as the only country to beat Norway thus far in this tournament while finishing 2-0 on Thursday.. The United States finished even with Finland at 6-5 and even for the final playoff position. The team's previous loss to Finland will now be weighing heavily on their minds as they prepare for the tiebreaker.

April 1 Results

The neck-and-neck race between Canada and Norway (both 8-1) continued Wednesday. Both teams made it through their two matches unblemished, though neither was facing a difficult task. Canada had the "best" win of the four matches, knocking off a Switzerland team that ended Wednesday 5-4 overall. 

Pat Simmons played the role of hero for Canada against Scotland with a freeze on a Scotland stone. It was a big comeback effort for the star, who struggled against Norway on Tuesday, which he admitted to Gregory Strong of The Canadian Press following Wednesday's win over Switzerland.

“Lots still can happen,” Simmons said. “Obviously our goal coming into this week was to get into that 1-2 game. We’re in control of that ourselves, which is great. But (there’s) more work to do though, we can’t let off the gas pedal for one second, or we won’t be in that game. So we need to keep working.”

As long as Canada continues to take care of business, then just as Simmons said, it will have the rematch it wants with Norway. Whether Simmons and the Canadians can overcome the problems they had in the first battle will be the question, though Wednesday was an encouraging step. 

It's really just a two-team race at the moment. Sweden continues to lurk in the shadows at 6-3, but two of those three defeats have come against Norway and Canada. The Swedish team hasn't fallen apart despite those earlier losses, looking strong against the United States and Japan to keep hope alive in the round-robin stage. 

After the top three teams, there's a cluster of eight teams with between four and six losses. There appears to be a clear divide between the top and everyone else in this year's championship. It's going to take a lot of focus and effort on Thursday to force a serious change in the final standings before the playoffs start. 

March 31 Results

Canada is always going to be in the spotlight at this event on home ice, and it suffered its first loss of the World Championships Tuesday against Norway. In fact, it was blown out by Norway 9-3 and conceded the match after eight ends.

Tuesday wasn't a complete loss for skip Pat Simmons and the rest of Team Canada considering they beat Japan 7-4. However, the loss to Norway was particularly important because Norway and Canada are both 6-1 and tied atop the standings. 

As for the United States, it also split its two games Tuesday, losing to Scotland and beating China. The Americans are 3-4 and in a three-way tie for sixth place in the standings.

Switzerland is the only other team within one game of the Canada and Norway tie for first place after it beat Finland and lost to Sweden. Switzerland is 5-2 during the world championships and has a golden opportunity to make some noise Wednesday when it starts the day with a showdown with the host nation, Canada.

March 30 Results

A marquee matchup kicked of Monday's slate between Canada and the Czech Republic, but skip Pat Simmons' dominant Canadian side wouldn't be denied in an 11-2 rout.

Canada was down 1-0 after the first end before rattling off 10 unanswered points to seize a commanding advantage through four ends.

Second Carter Rycroft praised how clutch Simmons has been in big moments, where the outcome is still able to go either way.

"You're always going to have those ends here and there when you need that freeze or you need that big shot — and he's making all of them," said Rycroft, per The Canadian Press, via CBC.ca. "The difference is if he misses three or four of them, we're sitting here talking to you at 3-2 or 2-3. It's that simple."

Momentum from the first victory carried over when Canada crushed Russia 9-3, who had a tough day in losing by the same score in the second wave to Sweden.

The United States fell to 1-3 overall in losing 7-4 to Finland, but rebounded with a solid 8-2 win over Italy in the evening to pull within one more victory of .500 in the round-robin action. Skip John Shuster's side has some ground to make up considering how much of a roll Canada is on and the logjam of countries with 3-2 records.

Both Switzerland and Norway capitalized on a favorable Monday schedule. Each team went 2-0 to improve to 4-1, staying within striking distance of the Canadians, owners of a perfect record in five fixtures thus far.

A golden opportunity presents itself for Norway when they take on Canada on Tuesday. With how well Canada is performing at the moment, though, they look borderline unbeatable as the prohibitive favorites in Halifax.

March 29 Results

After edging out the United States the previous day, Canada enjoyed a 2-0 run on Sunday with victories over China and Sweden respectively.

Skip Pat Simmons continues to shine in the leadership role, taking over his post during the Tim Hortons Brier for John Morris, who praised Simmons' efforts after Sunday's action.

"He's been amazing, just like he was in the Brier," said Morris, per The Canadian Press, via CBC.ca. "He's kept it up, which is awesome to see and he's a great leader. He's really easy to play for. He just seems more comfortable in that skip role than that third role and vice-versa for me."

At the end of the eighth end versus Sweden, Canada was tied at six, only to pull away with three unanswered points to take both of its matchups on the day.

With Simmons leading the charge, Canada has to be considered the favorite, since they seem to be carrying over their momentum from the Brier triumph. The United States suffered a big setback and has their work cut out after a 9-3 loss to Switzerland on Sunday.

It was an impressive recovery by the Swiss side after a 9-5 defeat at the hands of Russia in the morning draw.

With two wins to make up for an opening Saturday loss, the Czech Republic team serves as a formidable foe to Canada when the two square off in kicking off Monday's action.

Here is a look at all the scores from the action from Saturday, March 28:

The most notable result from Thursday was the thrilling showdown between Canada and the United States. A nail-biter may not have been the way Canada envisioned starting out its championship quest on home ice, but that is exactly what it received. In fact, it took an extra end for Canada to win 11-10, completing an impressive comeback in the process.

Skip Pat Simmons saw his team down 9-7 heading into the ninth end. He responded in admirable fashion, though, and earned three points to take a 10-9 lead. While the United States tied it in the final end and forced extra time, it was that performance in the ninth end that made the ultimate difference. 

Simmons' teammates were likely thrilled given John Morris' comments coming into the tournament, per Canada.com: “That’s one of our big motivators going into Halifax. We want to get that world championship for Pat.”

Despite Canada's incredible history at the World Championship, Simmons actually doesn't have one of his own. That may change if he continues to come through in the clutch like he did Saturday.

Elsewhere, Sweden and Switzerland both looked the part of challengers in the early going with initial wins in their opening matches. 

In all, it was a day of thrilling competition, and it set the stage for what should be an exciting World Championship. Five of the eight matches were decided by a single point, which is a testament to how close some of these teams are in terms of talent level.