Sweden - America.
About thirty-seven thousand people live in Schaffhausen, the capital of the canton of Schaffhausen. This historic city, which already had its own coins a thousand years ago, is situated on the Rhine River just a few kilometres from the German border. The weather these days is changeable - rain, wind, sun, it's not easy to dress properly. The morning quartet of matches is halfway through. Canada is schooling the Norwegians in productive game techniques, the Italian is looking for the obligatory win against New Zealand and the Dutch are trying to surprise the Scots. I'm sitting behind the rink where Sweden is playing the USA. So far the Swedes are benefiting from the Americans being a bit unlucky, missing some stones, but also not reading the ice well and making throwing errors. The American Hamilton, with the iconic green rag in his back pants pocket, is playing number one and the clean-shaven Plys is at number three. The Swedes are in the standard lineup. In the important eighth inning, John Shuster's chance for a deuce dawns. Niklas has to throw a fairly flat double to defend it. One American stone flies out, but the other one stays in play and just moves to the edge of the rings. Hit and stay, and after eight ends the USA leads Sweden 4-3. After a couple of great shots, the Norse take the lead and Sundgren makes the last end with a precise guard at the center line. The Swedes are in a hurry, they don't have much time available, yet their stones are accurate. They take a time-out before the last two stones. Meanwhile, the Italians and Canadians are winning, the Scots are close and Shuster plays a stone to win. Mouat makes it and Gosgens has nothing left to play. For the third time in this tournament, the Americans miss the last stone of the match, giving the win to the Swedes.
rnphoto: the hall after the games