Canada squeaks past Italy in playoff opener at LGT World Men’s Curling Championship

OGDEN, Utah — It was a grind, but it was worth every bit of the effort it took for Canada’s Team Matt Dunstone to advance to the semifinals at the 2026 LGT World Men’s Curling Championship.

Dunstone’s Winnipeg team somehow, some way, scrapped its way to a 9-7 win over Italy’s Team Stefano Spiller Friday morning at the Weber County Ice Sheet.

With the victory, Dunstone, vice-skip Colton Lott, second E.J. Harnden, lead Ryan Harnden, alternate Geoff Walker, team coach Caleb Flaxey and national coach Jeff Stoughton advance to Friday’s 5 p.m. (all times Eastern) semifinal against Scotland’s Team Ross Whyte.

Dunstone took advantage of a missed draw by Spiller with his final stone of the 10th end to make a double takeout to score three for the victory in a game that Canada struggled to establish momentum.

“I’m so proud of the guys,” said Ryan Harnden. “We battled, I thought we played really well, and what a beauty on the last one.”

The path to get to Dunstone’s game-winner was anything but easy, as the Italians took advantage of some early misses from the Canadian skip to hold Canada, which held the hammer to open the game, to a single in the second end, and then scored three in the third.

“The (guys) hung with me,” said Dunstone. “I was terrible in the first half of that game. We stuck with it and found a way to keep the deficit to two points at the half. I just told the guys, ‘Just stick with me, keep giving me shots to put multiples on the board.’ They did. I finally executed in the back half the way that is expected of me. That was just a testament to the team sticking together and nobody going inwards because that could have got really bad really quick. We stuck with it and just gave ourselves a chance.”

It was a 4-2 lead for Italy at the fifth-end break after the teams traded single points, but Dunstone sparked the Canadian comeback in style with a stunning steep-angle in-off to remove a buried Italian stone from the button and score a crucial deuce.

But Italy replied immediately with a deuce of its own to restore the two-point lead, only to watch Dunstone reply with a draw for two in the eighth to tie it.

In the ninth, a perfect corner freeze by Dunstone forced Italy to take a single that gave that coveted hammer to Canada coming home, and the 2026 Montana’s Brier champs wielded it to perfection.

“That’s not the start we had envisioned, obviously, but curling isn’t perfect, life isn’t perfect,” said Dunstone. “Sometimes you have to just deal with what’s thrown at you, and we did that today.”

Next on the docket will be a semifinal showdown with the Scots, who finished with the same 10-2 round-robin record as Canada, and will bring a 10-game win streak into the semi, while Canada has now won nine straight. The Scots beat Canada 8-3 six days ago.

“It feels like seven months ago since we played them in the round robin,” said Dunstone with a laugh. “We’re excited to have a crack at them again. It’s always a good game with Ross; we’ve had a lot of battles with them over this year and forever.”

The winner will advance to Saturday’s 4 p.m. gold-medal game, while the loser will play for bronze Saturday at 11 a.m.

The other semifinal will feature Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin and Team John Shuster of the United States. The U.S. reached the semi by stealing one in an extra end to beat Switzerland’s Team Marco Hoesli 9-8.

TSN/RDS2, the official broadcast partners of Curling Canada’s Season of Champions, will provide live coverage of Canada’s round-robin games, in addition to all playoff games. CLICK HERE for their complete broadcast schedule.

The list of teams, schedule information, and live scoring can be found by CLICKING HERE.

This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/fr/nouvelles-media/.