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OGDEN – Matt Dunstone’s Canadian crew gave up a crucial three points in the fifth end to Ross Whyte of Scotland and couldn’t recover, losing their first game of the world men’s curling championship 8-3 in eight ends Saturday.
Dunstone, with third Colton Lott, second E.J. Harnden and lead Ryan Harnden, are 2-1 after five draws at the Weber County Ice Sheet.
Winless Scotland scored a deuce in the first end, then had steals of one in the second and third ends before Canada struck for two in the fourth to make it a 4-2 game. Whyte’s three in the fifth end led to early handshakes after the teams traded single points over the next two ends.
“Their backs were against the wall — 0-and-2, right?” said Dunstone. “You know you were going to get a pretty good version of them today and we did. All good; I mean, it’s a long week, and (they’re) a great team, too.”
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“They played really well,” said Lott. We got behind the 8-ball early, and when a team’s playing like that it’s very hard to come back. As much as you want to win them all, it’s such a hard field and it really shows us going forward here the resilience and being able to bounce back after this game.”
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Dunstone was philosophical about the defeat, knowing that running the table in a 13-team round robin is a tall task.
“If it were to happen, great, but obviously, it’s not going to anymore,” he said. “So we’ve got the rest of the day off, (we can) regroup and get ready for Team USA tomorrow. We’ve been in this territory many, many times before.
“We’re 25 per cent of the way through the round robin. Even today, I thought we did a lot of things well. Ross just made every shot under the sun, and I couldn’t answer.”
Scotland improved to 2-2 later Saturday with a 6-4 win over John Shuster’s American squad in the evening draw.
Switzerland won its third straight game of the event with an 8-3 win over Japan, while Italy beat China 7-4 in nine ends and Poland dumped Germany 11-4 in eight ends.
Sweden and Switzerland are co-leaders of the 13-team event with 3-0 records, followed by Canada, Germany and Japan, all at 2-1.
Scotland is 2-2, followed by China, Czechia, Italy, South Korea, Poland and the U.S., all at 1-2. Norway is 0-3.
Dunstone’s team will play the United States in its only game Sunday, before facing Poland and Japan on Monday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2026.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
