Close call, but Canada beats Swiss

Switzerland is sitting in last place at this year's World Men's. Heading into a game against first placed Team Canada, skipped by the legendary Kevin "The Old Bear" Martin is sure to be intimidating, to say the least. But the new Swiss skip, Claudio Pescia, would never admit to that. Not only did they want to give Canada a hard time, but they wanted to actually win the game. Impossible? Maybe not.

Switzerland kept pace with Canada early on in the game. Canada opening with the hammer, something they haven't seen in a while, got a score of two in the first end. Despite the good start by Canada, the Swiss wiped the slate clean by scoring a duce of their own in the second. Martin put Canada out in front again with another score of two in the third end. With the momentum going his way, Kevin Martin dinged the Swiss again in the fourth end, getting a steal of one point. The fifth end was blanked to let Canada carry a 5-2 lead into the break.

Just when it looked like things were starting to get too far out of reach for the Swiss, they struck back hard. A big three points were scored in the sixth by Switzerland after jumping all over some big missed shots by the Canadian skip. And now that they had Canada down, they weren't letting up. They held Martin to a single point in the seventh to take back last rock advantage.

But a steal in the eighth end seemed to breath new confidence into Team Canada, and they went on to win the game 8-6.

Canada has just one game left in the round robin, which will be against Craig Brown of the United States in the seventeenth and final draw. After that, it's off to the 1 vs. 2 page playoff game for Martin, who has already locked up the top seed. Switzerland, on the other hand, has been eliminated from playoff competition for some time now. They sit in last place, with one more loss than the Czech Republic who have played one less game than Switzerland.