OTTAWA — Canada’s Caleb Flaxey looks like his head is on a swivel from his perch on the coach’s bench at the world men’s curling championship.
With notebook at the ready and binoculars by his side, the Team Brad Gushue coach is constantly monitoring the action on all four sheets at TD Place.
“These guys are arguably the best in the world but there’s always continuous improvement needed,” Flaxey said. “So it’s always finding the fine details that can help out quite a bit.
“I’ve developed an eye for that over time.”
Flaxey has helped guide the Brad Gushue team to a 4-2 mark after four days of round-robin play. The latest victory was a comfortable 8-3 win over Lukas Klima of the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
Canada scored a deuce in the third end and pulled away with a steal of three points in the fourth.
Gushue, vice Mark Nichols, second E.J. Harnden and lead Geoff Walker were in a fifth-place tie with Japan’s Riku Yanagisawa entering the late draw.
“We’re still in a position where we control our own fate … that’s all we can do and we’ll see what happens,” Gushue said.
Three of the four Canadians shot over 90 per cent. Gushue finished at 94 per cent while Klima was at 78 per cent.
“They’re kind of perfectionists and that’s what you need to be at the top,” Czech coach Craig Savill said of the host team. “You can’t settle for mediocre and you can’t settle for great.
“You have to always be striving for perfection.”
Round-robin play continues through Friday night. The top six teams in the 13-team field will qualify for the weekend playoffs.
With longtime coach Jules Owchar not keen to travel outside of Alberta this season, the Gushue rink reached out to Flaxey last spring.
Harnden, a new addition to the squad who had played with Flaxey and was coached by him for years, raised his name. Gushue decided to call him out of the blue.
“We had quite the chat,” Flaxey recalled. “We probably chatted for nearly an hour just talking about curling, talking about the team and what they were looking for.
“I must say I’m quite happy he gave me a call.”
Flaxey wasn’t sure what his coaching future might hold after the members of Team Brad Jacobs went their separate ways last year.
The 39-year-old Toronto native is busy with his work at an optical business, but the chance to work with the St. John’s, N.L.-based side was too good to pass up.
“There would have only been a few opportunities that would have really excited me to do this,” Flaxey said. “So to get the call from Brad — really the best of all-time — it was definitely a situation that I wanted to be a part of.”
Gushue is 39-9 on the season and currently ranked fourth in the world.
“I would say he brings us a little bit of all the great coaches we’ve had over the years, all in one person,” Gushue said. “It’s nice. We trust him when he’s holding the broom for us to give us the feedback we want.”
During game action, Flaxey is studying rock orders, patterns and ice changes across the sheets. He also zeros in on the Canadian players for each throw.
“Caleb has a great mind for the game,” Harnden said. “He sees everything really well in terms of strategy and ice conditions and does a phenomenal job with rocks.
“He also just has the ability to be able to say the right thing at the right time, and be very mindful of when to say something, when not to and how to say it.”
In other games Tuesday afternoon, defending champion Niklas Edin of Sweden (6-0) defeated Japan 9-6. Germany’s Sixten Totzek beat Turkey’s Ugurcan Karagoz 9-6 and Italy’s Joel Retornaz dropped a 9-8 decision to Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell in an extra end.
After 10 draws, Norway and Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller were tied in second place at 5-1. Scotland’s Bruce Mouat was next at 4-1 and Italy was alone in seventh place at 3-3.
Medal games are scheduled for Sunday.
Gushue’s schedule will pick up starting Wednesday when he begins a run of three straight two-game days. He’ll play in the morning and evening each day and still has some notable competition to come.
Canada will play 2018 Olympic champ John Shuster of the United States on Wednesday night, Scotland on Thursday and Sweden in the round-robin finale Friday evening.
“I think the best part is the team is in a pretty good mood,” Flaxey said. “We’ve been fairly relaxed throughout this event, so that’s good.
“The nerves might have been a bit edgier in the first few days but I think we’re finding our groove.”
Gushue, who won Olympic gold in 2006, has settled for silver at his last two world championship appearances. His lone world title came in 2017 at Edmonton.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 4, 2023.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
