Fourth straight loss puts Canadian mixed doubles curling playoff hopes in jeopardy

Team Canada’s playoff hopes in mixed doubles curling took a serious blow Sunday afternoon when Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant lost a tight decision to Sweden at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games.

In a game featuring Canada’s husband-and-wife team versus Swedish brother and sister, Isabella and Rasmus Wranå stole two points early and scored three in the seventh end to hand Canada a devastating 7-6 defeat.

Canada’s fourth straight loss dropped Peterman and Gallant to 3-4. The other afternoon results – United States beat Estonia 5-3; Switzerland ended Great Britain’s unbeaten run 7-6; Italy beat Czechia 8-2 – dropped Canada to sixth place in the standings. Only the top four teams make the playoffs.

Great Britain (Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat) still leads the standings at 7-1 and are the only team to have secured a berth in the semifinals. Defending Olympic and reigning World champion Italy (Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner) and the United States (Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin) are tied at 5-2 with Sweden now 5-3.

Switzerland (Briar Schwaller-Hürlimann and Yannick Schwaller) is 4-3. Korea (Kim Seon-yeong and Jeong Yeong-seok) and Norway (Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten) are at 2-5. Estonia (Marie Kaldvee and Harri Lill) and Czechia (Julie Zelingrova and Vit Chabicovsky) are both 2-6.

Canada will play Korea in Sunday evening’s draw while Switzerland plays Norway. In two pivotal games, Italy plays Great Britain and Sweden takes on the U.S.

Canada wraps up its round robin play Monday morning against Switzerland. Two-team tiebreakers will be determined first by head-to-head matches. If there’s more than two teams involved in a tiebreaker, positioning will be decided by draw shot challenges and that does not work for Canada since they are last in the draw shot results.

“We have to reset and come out firing tonight,” Gallant said after the tough loss to Sweden. “I thought we played a hell of a game this afternoon so that is a good sign. We obviously need two wins and a little bit of help.”

Peterman and Gallant still showed signs of having issues finding their weight at points throughout the match but both made some critical shots when required. The Canadians did grab a brief lead after the sixth end, but Sweden counted three in a game-changing seventh and that proved to be the difference.

“I thought we played a great game,” said Peterman. “We had a good debrief last night and chatted about how we wanted to make adjustments to our throws and how we were communicating and how to get the most out of the ice conditions. I thought we did that today. We were close on everything.”

Canada had hammer for only the second time in seven games but two perfect draws by Isabella Wranå, playing in her first Olympics, gave Sweden a steal of two, putting Canada in an early hole for the third straight game.

But the female half of the Swedish siblings was just wide with her final stone freeze attempt in the second, opening the door for Peterman’s quiet weight hit for two and a tie game. The result for Peterman was a confidence booster after she shot a disappointing 17 per cent on her three hit shots in Canada’s 8-6 loss to Estonia on Saturday.

The Wranås had a chance for three in the third, but Isabella’s double takeout attempt jammed and they had to settle for a single. Canada got that back in the fourth when Peterman slid a perfectly weighted draw to the button against four Swedish stones.

Wearing their black uniforms for the first team, Peterman and Gallant found their draw weight in time to successfully use their power play to score two and take the lead for the first time, 5-4 after six ends. After being 10 feet short on his first draw and having his second slide through the house, Gallant made a perfect freeze at the back of the button on his final stone. Peterson followed with a draw through a narrow port to the button for the deuce.

Sweden responded by scoring three on their power play. Isabella Wranå kicked out Peterman’s last-rock freeze try to put Sweden up two heading into the final end. Canada had an outside chance for three in the eighth but a desperation triple runback to try to get out a buried Swedish stone didn’t work out.