When you’ve been around the international curling scene as long as Kerri Einarson and her Canadian team have been, it’s a rare occasion to face an opponent from country without a long history of producing world-calibre curlers.
That happened Sunday afternoon at CN Centre when Einarson played Turkey at the 2022 BTK Tires & OK Tire World Women’s Curling Championship.
Einarson, the Canadian women’s champion the past three years running, went head-to-head with Turkish skip Dilsat Yildiz, making her country’s debut at the world women’s event. Canada prevailed 8-4 in seven ends, but it was no means an easy path to victory.
Of all the 13 countries involved in the nine-day event, which started Saturday, Team Turkey has had to travel the furthest. It’s a 9,316-kilometre trip from the Turkish capital of Ankara to Prince George and Yildiz and her team of third Oznur Polat, second Berfin Sengul and lead Ayse Gozutok aren’t here just to check out the British Columbia scenery.
They’re here to win, like they did at the Olympic qualifying tournament in The Netherlands, where they beat Japan, South Korea and Scotland on their way to a 3-5 record. They didn’t make the cut to compete in Beijing Olympics but the experience of beating three teams that are in Prince George this week was a confidence-builder for the upstart Turks.
Einarson, who had her struggles in a 6-4 loss Saturday to Norway, got back to the lights-out curling she showed one day ago in Canada’s opening 9-2 win over Italy. The 32-year-old skip got Canada on the scoreboard in the second with a draw for two.
While Einarson was zoned in right from the start, Canada’s third, Val Sweeting, took a few shots to get her radar working. In the third end, trying to get through a narrow opening she wrecked on one of the guards set up in the front but redeemed herself on her next shot with a perfect angle raise that put Canada in shot-rock position.
“Last night (against Norway) we all just struggled figuring out the ice and I know I definitely wasn’t myself out there and showed a lot of frustration,” said Sweeting. “It was tough. There was a couple duds I deserved for sure but some others I felt really close. Wit’s a battle. We’re human and it’s hard when you feel so close and you’re getting the results and I had a couple of those early this game too.
“The theme for our team is keeping it light, trying to enjoy ourselves out there, and the rest kind of follows. It’s not going to be a breezy walk in the park all the time, there’s going to be ups and downs but I think it’s how we respond and that exactly what we did today.”
With two stones from each team crowding the button, Canada had a chance for a steal when Dilsat ticked a guard on her first shot, but the 25-year-old skip from Erzurum, Turkey made up for that with a well-hit raise on the last shot of the end to gain a point to tie it up 2-2.
Sweeting made a key hit-and-roll in the fourth end to clear Turkish granite out of the corner in the eight-foot, which that led to Canada earning its second three of the tournament. Einarson’s draw to the back of the back of the four-foot left Yildiz with a difficult double takeout and she could only get one of her intended targets out of the rings. Sitting two, Einarson had an unobstructed draw for three and a 5-2 lead.
“I came up short in the second end when we had a chance to sit two, it was just heavier than I thought, and I feather-ticked the guard twice, two ends in a row,” said Sweeting. “They felt like really good throws but we debriefed that and figured it out and made the adjustment when we had that shot again.
“It’s tough to have that kind of blind faith when you feel really close and you’re not getting the results but it definitely came together. We figured out the ice today and the girls set the ends up well and Kerri finished them off. It was definitely the bounce-back we were looking for.”
Canada (2-1) scored another three in the sixth. Yildiz tried to raise one of her own stones into double-takeout position but overthrew it and drove it across the top, opening the door for Einarson for a routine draw that increase her lead to 8-3.
In the seventh end, Yildiz drew against three and got one more point but it wasn’t enough and Turkey elected to concede. The Turks dropped to 0-3.
Polat has been a curler since 2012, a year after her hometown of Erzurum, in eastern Turkey, hosted Winter Universiade, a multi-sport intentional event for university athletes.Until then, curling had never been played in Turkey.
“We are so excited for this championships because it’s the first tie in world championships for Team Turkey and we’re so sad because we lost against Canada,” said Polat. “But we have many games that we will play and in the other games we hope we will have success.”
Einarson said she didn’t have an extensive scouting report on Turkey but she knew that after two close losses Saturday (9-6 to Sweden, 7-6 to Japan) they were capable curlers.
“We’ve played a lot of different teams, so we have our scouters out there and they give us a little bit of info and we go off of that, but we really focus on our team,” said Einarson. “They’re a great team and they made some nice shots. It’s always nice to play a different team. There was one end (the fourth) where they put some pressure on us and Val made a great shot and I also made mine and (Yildiz) had her shot for one so we forced them.”
Einarson made 100 per cent of her shots, while Sweeting finished at 79 per cent. Dilsat was 57 per cent overall, making 63 per cent of her draws but only 55 per cent of her takeouts. Polat ended up at eclipsing Sweeting with an 82 per cent overall grade.
In other afternoon games, United States scored a 7-6 win over Italy to improve to 2-1; South Korea defeated Czech Republic 8-7,
In the Sunday morning draw, Switzerland edged Sweden 8-7, Japan topped Italy 9-2, South Korea defeated Germany 7-2, and Czech Republic beat Scotland 10-9.
Canada will play the two-time defending world champions from Switzerland tonight at 7 p.m. In the other evening games, Japan faces the United States, and Norway takes on Germany.
The Denmark-Scotland game scheduled for tonight has been cancelled after two additional members of the Scottish team tested positive for COVID, forcing the team to withdraw from the tournament.
