Canadians stay perfect at Curling World Cup
Koe, Homan, mixed doubles team now a combined 8-0
Canada's three teams are now a combined 8-0 at the inaugural Curling World Cup event in China after winning all their games for the second consecutive day.
The women's team, skipped by Rachel Homan, defeated South Korea 12-0 Thursday to improve to 2-0 — tied with Sweden and the United States for the best record in their tournament.
"Korea are a new team so they're still learning about each other. I'm sure we'll see a stronger performance next time we play them," said Homan, whose team is based in Ottawa.
Kevin Koe's men's rink from Calgary also had an easy day, routing Scotland 11-1 in the morning before handling Japan 8-2 to raise its record to 3-0 — even with the U.S.
Sweden's Nik Edin surprisingly fell to 1-2. Playing without second Rasmus Wranaa, who suffered a back injury, Edin's rink managed to beat Norway 8-5 before falling to China 7-2.
Canada and the U.S. are also the class of the mixed doubles tournament with matching 3-0 records. The Edmonton-based duo of Laura Walker and Kirk Muyers defeated Russia 9-1 and Sweden 8-2 on Thursday.
Watch highlights of Kevin Koe's victory over Japan:
How it works
The Curling World Cup is a new initiative from the World Curling Federation and includes four stops, running from this week through May.
Each Curling World Cup event has three separate tournaments — men's, women's and mixed doubles. Each tournament has eight teams, split into two groups of four. After a double round-robin within each group, the two group winners square off in the final.
Games consist of eight ends. Should a game be tied after the eighth end, a single-rock, closest-to-the-button shootout will determine the winner. Teams get three points for a win in regulation, two for a shootout win, one for a shootout loss and zero for a regulation loss.
The winning men's and women's teams this week in China will each take home $20,000 US, plus an additional $1,500 for every round-robin victory. The winner of the mixed doubles competition gets $10,000, plus an additional $750 for each round-robin win.
All three champions will also earn a berth in the Curling World Cup Grand Final in Beijing in May. That event will feature the winners of each of the three previous legs, host China, the reigning world champions, a team invited by the World Curling Federation and the two highest-ranked remaining teams in the World Cup rankings.
After this week's event in Suzhou, the next World Cup stop is Dec. 5-9 in Omaha, Neb., followed by Jan. 30-Feb. 3 in Jonkoping, Sweden.