Matt Dunstone isn't panicking after suffering a one-sided loss for his first setback of the week at the world men's curling championship.
Dunstone's Canadian rink fell 8-3 to a desperate Team Ross Whyte of Scotland in just seven ends in Ogden, Utah on Saturday. Scotland was 0-2 coming into the contest, while Canada had the opposite mark.
“You know you were going to get a pretty good version of them today and we did,” Dunstone said post-game, per Curling Canada. “All good; I mean, it’s a long week, and (they’re) a great team, too.”
The scoreboard may tell a different story, but Canada didn’t look far off from the team that dominated its opening day. As a team, Canada curled 88 per cent to Scotland’s 90.
But Dunstone couldn’t match Whyte while throwing fourth stones, and that was the difference. It felt like Whyte would have been OK if he shot with his eyes closed.
“We’re 25 per cent of the way through the round-robin,” Dunstone said after shooting 75 per cent. “Even today, I thought we did a lot of things well. Ross just made every shot under the sun, and I couldn’t answer.”
Obviously, there is more to Canada’s loss, though, so let’s get into that and a couple more takeaways from Saturday.
Dunstone might have been too aggressive
In Friday column, I pointed out the attack mindset Dunstone and his teammates Colton Lott, E.J. Harnden and Ryan Harnden displayed that helped them beat Korea and Italy quite easily.
The way he called the game against the Scots was even more aggressive, and it came back to bite him — specifically in the third end.
After Dunstone made a brilliant nose-runback double takeout with his first stone to lie two, Whyte followed by making a hit and roll to basically put his rock in the exact same spot.
The Canadians, already down 3-0 after giving up a steal of one in the second end, had a couple options. Either play the same long runback they just did to hopefully score two, or draw to the four-foot to get their single.
Dunstone elected to be aggressive and go for the runback. This time he missed, giving up another steal to trail 4-0. While the team continued to fight for the rest of the game, that shot seemed to deflate the Canadians.
This isn’t to say Dunstone shouldn't be aggressive the rest of the week, but he also has to play the scoreboard. Down three that early in the game, it’s probably best to take the point and move on.
Sweden looks different
Who knows how the rest of the week will turn out for Sweden’s Niklas Edin and his team, but one thing is certain.
The seven-time world champion will finish with more wins than he did at the 2026 Olympics after improving his record to 3-0 with victories over Italy and China on Saturday. At the Olympics, Edin finished with a record of 2-7.
“110 per cent, yes,” Edin told reporters post-game when asked if the disappointing Olympics has motivated his team for this event.
“Yeah, we feel very motivated to just play like we normally do. Obviously, not the result we wanted at the Olympics, but it was few really close games that could’ve gone a little differently. So, we talked about having a much better start, we just needed more wins in the beginning to kind of be able to relax a little bit throughout the round-robin.”
Edin’s Olympic performance had people questioning if he should continue curling competitively past this season with him being 40 years old, and considering how bad his team had looked dating back to last year’s world championship.
The biggest difference so far between the team we’ve seen for the past year compared to the one now is the shot-making ability. Edin will be the first one to tell you his performance on the Grand Slam of Curling circuit and at the Olympics wasn’t up to his standards, just like the rest of his teammates.
They couldn’t make the simple shots they’ve made their whole careers. But now, they’re seemingly hitting everything. Through three games, they’re shooting 88.1 per cent as a team and Edin looks to have that magic touch back, where he can bail his team out of trouble, or convert for a big end.
Poland earns first-ever win
If we know one thing, it's that curling is continuing to grow worldwide.
At the women’s world championship earlier this month, we had an Australian team, led by skip Helen Williams, compete for the first time. They earned the country’s first-win in their second game against Norway.
Now, the same has happened on the men’s side. Poland, led by skip Konrad Stych, is competing for the first time on the world stage and picked up his country's first win during their second match as well.
What’s even more surprising is that Stych's 90th-ranked team defeated Germany’s Marc Muskatewitz. Not only is Muskatewitz ranked 20th in the world, but his team just competed at the 2026 Olympics.
Poland dominated Germany, winning 11-4. In back-to-back ends with the hammer, Stych hung four points on the board each time.
It will be interesting to see if this will only be a one-game wonder like Australia was on the women’s side, or, if Poland can build off this, and upset more teams.
