March 07, 2008

Men's Ranking at World Juniors

Right, the last round of men's play has just finished. Three teams finished on a record of 7 wins and two losses: Canada, Sweden and the USA. They are ranked in this order on the basis of who had beaten who. Canada had beaten both Sweden and the US. Sweden had beaten the US. The Draw Shot Challenge was not needed to decide the ranking.

Canada will play Sweden in the Page 1-2.

Switzerland and Norway finished on 5-4, and will play a tiebreaker this afternoon. The USA awaits the winner of this game for the Page 3-4.

Sadly the two teams at the bottom of the table are the Czech Republic on 1-8, and Scotland on 2-7. Both are relegated. There is a big 'losers party' (trust the Swedes to be direct) tonight.

Just to clarify the relegation issue. Two teams go down this year. There will be opportunity to get back into the Worlds by doing well in the European Junior Challenge which will be in January 3-7, 2009, at the Taarnby club in Denmark. TWO places will be available from there for next year's World Juniors in Vancouver in the Olympic venue. For that event, top ten in the world are made up from the host nation (Canada, one place), Americas (one place), the Pacific Region (one place) and seven from Europe - the top five best European countries from here in Ostersund, plus two qualifiers from Taarnby. It's all set out in the WCF rulebook (page 33) which is available to download here.

I think confusion arises because if the host country is in the Pacific zone only a total of six European countries take part. If it is in Europe, six plus the host country take part. But if the host country is Canada, as it is next year, seven Euro countries can compete in total.

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