THE CANADIAN PRESS
ESBJERG, Denmark — Canadian skip Amber Holland made sure her world women’s curling championship debut was a winning one.
Holland guided her Saskatchewan rink to an 8-6 victory over former world champion Bingyu Wang of China on Saturday at the Granly Hockey Arena.
"It’s nice to come out and get adjusted to the ice and to have a win is great," Holland said. "We’re just trying to get a feel for the ice, it changed a little bit throughout the game, but everything’s going great."
In other early games, Switzerland defeated the United States 5-3, the Czech Republic edged Scotland 6-5 and Russia beat Korea 9-5.
Holland took control of a tight game by scoring four in the sixth end to take a 6-3 advantage.
The Canadians caught a break in the seventh when China had to settle for two instead of three after its rock rolled just a tad too far. But Hollard came up big in the eighth with a solid tap-back to the button with China lying three to go ahead 7-5.
After the Chinese scored one in the ninth to cut Canada’s lead to 7-6, Holland countered with one in the 10th to cement the victory.
Holland figures tight games will be the norm for Canada this week.
"Obviously China is a great team and there are a lot of great teams here — Olympic champions too — so I’m not going to say it’ll get any easier this week," she said.
Holland, third Kim Schneider, third Tammy Schneider, lead Heather Kalenchuk are playing at the world championship for the first time. They qualified for the event by beating the Jennifer Jones team from Winnipeg that had won the national title for three consecutive years.
Holland believes her team is well prepared heading into the event.
"We came early, arrived Tuesday," she said. "We’ve had a few days to get to know the place and get acclimated so it’s good."
Canada will play twice Sunday, facing Russia and Denmark.
Holland’s team was a dark horse at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Charlottetown and they are again here because of their lack of international experience. However, Canada is so deep in competitive curling teams that whoever represents the country is expected to contend for gold.
The 12-country field includes defending world champion Andrea Schoepp of Germany, who won the title last year in Swift Current, Sask. Two-time Olympic champion Anette Norberg of Sweden has a new, young team behind her and Switzerland’s Mirjam Ott has twice won a silver medal at the Olympics.
The last Saskatchewan team to represent Canada at the women’s world championship was Sandra Schmirler in 1997.
Schmirler’s team won the third of their three titles that year and they captured the first Olympic gold medal awarded in women’s curling a year later in Nagano, Japan. Schmirler died of cancer at the age of 36 in 2000.