While Korea and Sweden seem to be fighting it out for first place in the junior men’s world curling championships in South Korea this week, Langley’s own Team Tardi (currently playing as Team Canada for this event) are not yet out of the running.
Playing Norway this afternoon, Cloverdale skip Tyler Tardi, his older brother Jordan, Langley’s Nicholas Meister, and Burnaby’s Sterling Middleton (accompanied by fifth/spare Nicholas Rabl) were able to secure a 4-2 victory, putting both teams into a tie for second place.
“It was a nail biter but we came out victorious in the end,” Tyler said.
The afternoon game between the local boys and Norway saw the first points scored in the third end, when Canada posted two.
Norway scored three points in the fourth end, and then Canada took one point from the fifth end to put the teams into the halftime break at 3-3.
Canada then had single steals in both the sixth and seventh ends, only for Norway to level again, at 5-5 with two points in the eighth end. Canada edged ahead with one point in the ninth end but, with last stone advantage in the tenth, Norway skip Magnus Ramsfjell wrecked on a front guard with his final draw to hand Canada a steal of two points and the win.
That puts them in the tie for second place, so far with four wins and two losses.
They secured their first victory on day 1, with a triumph in their opening game Thursday against Sweden 12-8, followed by a loss against Korea 9-5 last Friday, and the same day a win against China 7-3.
On Sunday, they beat Italy 9-2, then lost later that same day to the U.S. 6-2, before today’s victory.
“We didn’t sign up for this to have an easy run, so that was exactly what we were expecting, and we’re expecting a lot more to come,” Tyler said of the game against Norway today.
“It’s good to be here and have a challenge. You want to win with a lot of fight and I think we’re doing that. We had a bit of a slow start in that game, but we had a good talk with our coach (Tyler and Jordan’s father Paul Tardi) at the fifth-end break and he brought us all back together as a team.”
Other standings
So how do the teams stand in the VoIP Defender World Junior Curling Championships on now through Sunday in Korea?
Korea continued their unbeaten run with a 9-3 win over Sweden Monday , in the seventh session of men’s round-robin play, in the Gangneung Curling Centre, Gangneung, Republic of Korea.
Other victories today for Scotland and Switzerland put both of these teams into a three-way tie for fourth place, along with U.S.A., who sat the session out.
With these results, Scotland and Switzerland share fourth place on the table with U.S.A., three wins behind Korea, but only one win behind Norway and Canada.
The local boys are set to play Switzerland Tuesday, Turkey on Wednesday, Scotland on Thursday.
The playoffs are set for Friday, with semifinals on Saturday, and finals Sunday.
Off the ice
While the team is there to represent Canada in the world juniors, there have been a few down times that have allowed them to explore the country.
Today, grateful for a chance to sleep in, they enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before heading to the Gangneung Curling Center.
“We arrived just in time for lunch and then had enough time to prepare for our game against Norway,” Tyler said, who added: “We travel past the Sea of Japan on a regular basis and the waves were crashing today – it was spectacular to watch.”
It’s back to the hotel for their debrief and dinner, and “then we got some ice cream!” said an overly excited skip.
“Tonight we are just going to have a relaxing evening of board games and for some of us we plan to get some homework done,” said Tyler, who is an engineering student at KPU.
“Another big game coming up tomorrow night, against Switzerland.”
• Stay tuned to the print and online editions of the Langley Advance for more on this international competition and the team of boys from Langley
