Canada's Peterman and Gallant looking for gold at World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship

Yahoo

02-05-2025

It was a marathon week well handled by Canada's Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant.
Now the sprint is on to global glory for the Calgary couple at the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship.
After six days and nine mostly successful games of a hectic round-robin schedule — which featured a clinch of an Olympic berth for the national champs — it's onto the must-win weekend run of draws in Fredericton, N.B.
'We'd sure love to win a Canadian world championship for Canada,' said Gallant, a 35-year-old native of Charlottetown, P.E.I. 'You know … we've been close before (with a silver in 2019), and gold is obviously the big goal at the end of it.
'But our focus is just controlling what we can control — play our best, do the little things that put us in a place to have success …' continued Gallant. 'That's the key for us — just relax and have fun enjoying it together, and the results will come.'
The results have already come for Gallant and Peterman, a 31-year-old product of Red Deer, Alta., at Willie O'Ree Place.
The dynamic duo posted enough victories throughout the round robin to become one of six playoff teams at these worlds.
And barring some sort of strange happening, that top-six finish at the championships should also qualify them for the mixed-doubles event at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy.
'Grateful being in our Team Canada jerseys,' Peterman said. 'You never know, in our country, how many times you're going to have that opportunity, and especially for us together in mixed doubles.
'So we're just very grateful to be able to play at this stage and represent our country and do it together.'
The six playoff teams were finalized during Thursday's final day of the round robin and included Canada (7-2) as one of the three Group A qualifiers. Italy (9-0) and Scotland (7-2) are the others.
The only thing that wasn't yet decided in the Group A standings heading into the wrap-up day was the order of finish among the qualifiers.
Canada rounded out the round robin on Thursday, dropping an 8-7 extra-end decision to Scotland's Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds, decided on a measurement — to help decide that order, while Italy's Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner knocked off Netherlands (1-8) 8-5 to wrap up their round-robin schedule.
In Group B action, Australia's Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt earned first place with an 8-1 mark.
But the other two playoff slots weren't decided until Thursday's late draw, with Estonia's Marie Kaldvee and Harri Lill and USA's Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin emerging from a logjam of teams with qualifying 6-3 marks. Japan, Norway and New Zealand also went into that wrap-up draw with 5-3 records but fell shy of weekend action.
Australia and Estonia aren't known as curling powers on the team scene, but that's different in mixed-doubles action.
'Yeah … they're strong,' confirmed Gallant. 'Mixed doubles is a little bit unique from four-person curling, where you need one really strong female and one strong male athlete. And if you put them together and play together enough, they can have a lot of success.
'So it's maybe allowed a few countries that don't typically battle for world championship medals to compete, and we've seen both those teams in competition and they're very strong. And there's a couple other countries in here that don't see a lot of action in the top tier of men's and women's team curling but are élite mixed doubles teams, as well.
'It's kind of cool to see that. I think it's good for our sport to see different countries excelling.'
WHAT'S THE PLAYOFF FORMAT?
Here's how the playoffs break down — with the top-three teams from each group earning spots — at the mixed doubles worlds …
• The second-place teams from each group — Scotland and Estonia — cross over to play the third-place teams — Canada and USA — in qualifying games early Friday (9 a.m. ET). That meant Canada v. Estonia and Scotland v. USA • The two group winners, who received a bye through the qualifying round — Italy and Australia — play the winners of the 2-v-3 games in the late Friday semifinals (5 p.m. ET) • The bronze-medal game matches the semifinal losers early Saturday (8:30 a.m. ET) • The gold-medal game between semifinal winners goes later Saturday (1 p.m. ET)
All games are live on the Curling Channel.
WHAT WAS CANADA'S SCHEDULE?
It was tough, with the Canadians' losses coming at the hands of their two other playoff qualifiers from Pool A — Italians Constantini and Mosaner and Scotland's Moaut and Dodds. Italy has already qualified for the Olympics as the host nation for the Milano-Cortino Games next February, and Mouat and Dodds won the worlds at the 2021 event in Aberdeen, Scotland …
• v. Germany, 10-5 W • v. Denmark, 6-4 W • v. Sweden, 8-6 W • v. Netherlands, 7-3 W • v. Italy, 5-7 L • v. South Korea, 11-6 W • v. Finland, 13-2 W • v. China, 9-4 W • v. Scotland, 8-7 L
That win over Sweden by Peterman and Gallant helped ensure a new champion will be crowned Saturday.
Sweden's Isabella Wrana and Rasmus Wrana won the event last year, but compatriots Anna Hasselborg and Oskar Eriksson carried that country's colours in Fredericton and failed to reach the playoffs with a 5-3 round-robin record through Wednesday in Group A action.
So a new king and queen will be crowned.
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