Matt Dunstone is moving past all the heartbreak.
The Canadian skip is now breaking other teams' hearts at the world men's curling championship.
Dunstone's Manitoba rink pulled off one of its gutsiest wins of the year to beat Scotland’s Team Ross Whyte 9-7 on Friday, booking Canada's ticket to the gold-medal game on Saturday in Ogden, Utah.
Dunstone has had close calls throughout his career — including two runner-up showings at the Montana Brier and another at last year's Canadian Olympic trials — before breaking through on the national and international scenes this year.
“What a game,” Dunstone told reporters afterwards. “That’s two heavyweights going at it, shot-for-shot … just a lot of punches being thrown, but feels great, what a battle.”
There were multiple moments in the game where Dunstone and teammates Colton Lott, E.J. Harnden and Ryan Harnden looked like they would be finished, but the Canadians kept coming back.
Dunstone’s first shot in the 10th end won Canada the game.
The Canadians were up 8-7 without the hammer, and Whyte had one sitting back of the button with a whole mess of rocks out front. Dunstone knew he needed to make a move with his first to get into the button area, or he could give up two, and the win.
Dunstone called and made a triple-tapback raise right on top of Whyte’s stone and from that point forward, there was no chance of removing it.
“I mean you're chasing all end and you kind of got to play it like you're needing the steal and that’s what we did,” Dunstone told reporters in his post-game scrum. “Made a massive shot on my first one to almost lock up the game just having it frozen on the pin there.”
After Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin defeated Team John Shuster of the U.S. 8-6 in an extra end, we will get the two countries responsible for the most dramatic game in curling this season squaring off the world.
Although it was Edin and eventual gold-medal winner Brad Jacobs who created that controversy-filled game at the Olympics, this matchup still should offer plenty of drama — even if there are no double touches.
Dunstone took it to Edin in the round-robin, beating him 10-3 in just six ends.
Edin will be looking for his eighth career world title. Five of his previous gold-medal wins have come against Canada.
Whyte was the one to collapse
Unlike the last two days where Dunstone played phenomenally in the first half of a couple of his games only to lose his touch in the later ends, it was Whyte struggling late in Friday’s semifinal.
In Thursday’s takeaways, I pointed out that the game-plan against Scotland had to be forcing Whyte into difficult shots. Canada did that, kind of.
Up until skip stones in the seventh end, Scotland was in control. It felt like Canada, although playing well, was chasing just a bit.
It all changed with one shot.
Whyte attempted a double takeout with one of the Canadian stones locked onto one of the Scottish rocks in the back four-foot. Whyte thought with enough weight both would go, and if not, he would get rid of at least one.
He didn’t remove any. This opened the door for Dunstone to draw for three and take a 6-5 lead.
From there, Whyte just wasn’t the same. Even after Dunstone basically gifted him back a three of his own in the eighth end. Whyte couldn't nail the weight and ended up scoring only two.
In the ninth, Whyte was aiming for top-12 weight on his first, trying to force Canada to take one and just tie the game heading to the 10th end.
Whyte threw it through the rings.
The collapse was so bad that in the 10th end, after Dunstone made the perfect tap on to the button to freeze, Whyte seemed to panic and attempted a shot that had no chance.
Canada did force pressure shots, but until the 10th end it wasn’t like they were super hard ones.
This is more on Whyte being a younger skip, surrounded by a young team, playing in their first world championship and not having the experience of playing in big games.
Italian curling has a great future
Even though everyone in Italy, and more than a few Canadians, are disappointed with the Italian soccer team not qualifying for the men’s World Cup later this year, they can’t be upset with the performance displayed by the men’s curling team this week.
Especially the play of 20-year-old rookie skip Stefano Spiller. It was just a couple weeks before the event when Spiller learned he would replace Joel Retornaz – who told the Italian federation he wouldn’t be playing this year – as the skip of his team.
Over the course of a week, Spiller went from getting blown out against Canada and curling 60 per cent in his debut match, to pushing the Canadians to the brink of elimination in the qualification game earlier Friday. Spiller even out-curled Dunstone 83 to 78 per cent.
Sure, we can say the moment was a bit too much in the end for Spiller. If he makes his final shot in the 10th end, Dunstone probably doesn’t have a chance to win. But that’s not the biggest takeaway.
The maturity Spiller showed in the 9-7 loss was impressive. He had a better understanding of how his new teammates like to play and called a much-improved game, giving Italy a real chance to win.
Spiller was also using his teammates, specifically Amos Mosaner, a terrific curling mind who was named to the LFT World Men’s 2026 All-Star team, to float ideas off, leading to better overall shots being called.
If Spiller’s week is a sign of what’s to come in Italian curling, the country will be in safe hands when Retornaz steps back.
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