Not with so many other countries taking it upon themselves to embrace the discipline and study it from all angles just the same as us.

In mixed doubles, all it takes is two dedicated people from a region — one male and one female — to give it a real go on the world stage.

Even Estonia, despite not having much of an effort in team curling, can do that in the mixed offering — and Kaldvee and Harri Lill have done just that in contributing to the struggles/downfall of Peterman and Gallant.

It just hurts that much more for Canada and the curlers themselves when a free-fall of four or five losses follows such a brilliant start out of the gate.

It’s hard to forget the fact the Albertans powered their way to a 3-0 start, which included domination over the defending Olympic champions in Italy’s Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner and a similar performance over double-Olympic medallists Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten of Norway.

At that time, the future looked bright in Cortina — as in gold-medal bright for Peterman and Gallant.

Then came a sharpening of stones and ice that just didn’t cooperate with the Canadians’ game, despite the fact the Games’ deputy chief ice technician, Greg Ewasko, is a Canadian staple in the ice-making trade.

The couple just couldn’t adjust, leading to five straight drops and a significant loss in confidence along the way.

Try as they might — and they fought tooth and nail in every game — these Games just somehow fizzled for Peterman and Gallant.

The good news is their shortcoming can only help the curlers in front of them at Cortina.

Gallant, of course, is part of Canada’s men’s team skipped by Brad Jacobs. They start their quest for gold as one of the strong contenders on Wednesday.

And then there’s Rachel Homan and the Canadian women hitting the pebbled ice on Thursday.

Information will be passed their way by Peterman and Gallant — stuff they hope can help them with the straight ice and the rocks to (hopefully) put Canada on the podium.

And at that, hopes are that info can lift our teams to the top step of the podium and get Canada feeling good about our curling domination again.

tsaelhof@postmedia.com
www.x.com/ToddSaelhofPM