One of the big things to consider is how the teams read the ice throughout the game. The ice conditions change throughout the game due to rocks sliding over and over the ice. It can also change because of the body heat in the building, creating frost on the ice. The players have to adapt. The teams that are able to do this first win the game.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
7th End: Sweden’s Edin Feeling the Pressure
Niklas Edin, the finest curler in the world, appears to be feeling that Olympic pressure. After another huge miss with his first shot of the seventh end, he bounced back to save a point for Sweden with the hammer, tying the score. But the United States is in great shape, with the hammer heading to the eighth — and on track to have it in the 10th.
John Shuster is more than deserving of the accolades he’s gotten during this bonspiel (curling talk for tournament), but his teammates have been outstanding. Matt Hamilton, the mustachioed social media hero for the Americans, executed a brilliant double takeout in the middle of the seventh end. And Tyler George, whose shots set up Shuster at the back of each end, has been one of the sharpest players on the ice.
Devin Heroux: Curling is one of few sports where adrenaline can be a bad thing — curlers have to calm their nerves and settle down before throwing big shots. Right now it looks like this young Swedish team is letting their nerves and adrenaline get the better of them. They are missing routine shots. Edin said that was his one concern, that they would let the pressure of the moment get to them.
Edin, however, has been here before in these pressure games and made one of the more remarkable shots of the Olympic tournament to score a single in the 7th end. It’s a shot that might have saved the game for his team. But Shuster’s team looks calm and confident with three ends left to decide this gold medal game.
8th End: Americans Pile on Five Points
John Shuster just nailed the most important shot in American curling history: a double takeout for five points and a seemingly insurmountable lead for the Americans entering the ninth end. The gold is all but theirs. The crowd is going bananas.
Devin Heroux: The Americans have been putting pressure on Sweden the entire game. You could see it and sense it in the building. The pressure was on and in the 8th end Sweden cracked.
A massive score of five in the 8th end by the United States has all but sealed this victory for a team that was once in jeopardy of missing the Olympic curling playoffs all together. It is a remarkable story about how this Shuster team never stopped believing and are now narrowing in on the country’s first gold medal in curling.
9th End: Sweden Gets Two Back
The United States, playing conservatively, gave up two to Sweden here in the ninth end, but still has a 10-7 lead (and the hammer) entering the 10th and final end. It would take a meltdown of intergalactic proportions for John Shuster & Co. to lose this match.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Devin Heroux: John Shuster has curled for a very long time. He’s had some serious low points throughout his career. But he never stopped playing the game he loves. He has kids now. He talks about them often and how different his perspective is in life and curling.
This is his moment now. He’s a few rocks away from being the first-ever Olympic curling champion from the United States, alongside his team.
10th End: Sweden Goes Down Quietly
Devin Heroux: It is one of the more improbable comebacks in the history of curling — and perhaps sports.
Team Shuster was on the ropes and seemingly down and out at the Olympics. With a 2-4 record and three games left in the tournament, Shuster couldn’t afford to lose another game. The team got on a roll and started believing they could win it all. That belief propelled them to wins over the Canadian curling juggernauts and then over the No. 1-ranked team in the world, Sweden, to capture Olympic gold.
It’s a historic win. The country’s first. But how they did it is even more incredible.
* Available to UK viewers only.
Britain’s curling gold medal hopefuls will leave Pyeongchang empty-handed after a mistake on the final stone handed Japan the bronze. Eve Muirhead and her team were chasing the game in the final end, only to dash their own chances with a misjudged attempt at the last
The U.S. defeated Sweden Saturday morning for its first curling Olympic gold medal
Redemption. Unprecedented. Historic.
There’s no one word to describe Team USA’s men’s curling victory in the gold medal game Saturday morning.
For a team in a sport that is known for yelling, the victory left John Shuster, Tyler George, Matt Hamilton and John Landsteiner speechless.
“It's too surreal to even think about right now,” said George, the team’s third and vice-skip. “I think it's going to hit harder tomorrow but I keep waiting to wake up. I’ve not been emotional because it's just shock. To go from where we were a few days ago… the emotions, they’re bottled up and they’re building but it’s going to be a little bit before they come out.”
Emotions were understandable. Winning Olympic gold will always bring that out in an athlete, but it’s probably more special when that win has history behind it. In five previous Winter Games in which curling has been contested, the U.S. has never won gold. Or silver. Only one bronze.
Shuster was a member of that bronze medal winning team in 2006. His story has become well documented. After the 2006 Games, he skipped the U.S. team in two consecutive Olympics. He was unsuccessful, to say the least.
Team USA finished at or near the bottom of the standings in both Games. After returning from Sochi in 2014, USA Curling created the High Performance Program in hopes of building curling in the states to an international power.
Shuster was initially not invited.
The irony of Saturday’s win is that USA Curling seemingly wanted to cut ties with Shuster so they could create a team on their own to beat the international heavyweights, and the first time the U.S. was able to do that in an Olympics was with Shuster at the helm.
That’s redemption.
“For me and John… This time around we were able to show them what we’re capable of and we’re really proud of that,” said Landsteiner, the team’s lead who was also on the 2014 Olympic team. “And this team, I’m just proud of what we have all done. We’ve put in so much work together the last four years and we’ve been able to peak at the right time obviously. So I can’t imagine it means any more than the world to any of us.”
It took a while for Team USA to find its peak in these games. They won their first game against Korea, then fell hard in their next two, 10-9 to Italy and 10-4 to Sweden.
After defeating Denmark in Game 4, the U.S. again had two straight losses, 8-2 to Japan and 8-4 to Norway. Three of their four losses were against teams that did make it to the semifinals.
Defensively they struggled, allowing three ends of three points, one of four and one of five. They gave up 48 points while only scoring 39.
In order to make the playoffs, the U.S. would have to go unbeaten against 3-time defending gold medalists Canada, World bronze medalists Switzerland, and defending Olympic silver medalists Great Britain.
"On the morning of February 19, Matt's (Hamilton) birthday, the day we played Canada, I woke up saw it and said 'I have a choice. I have a choice to rewrite my story, to write the story of this team,'" Shuster said. "That we put the work in and I wasn't going to let any thought in my head or any of that stuff get the in way of the story of this team... they deserve to have the skip who helped them get here and I'm glad I showed up."
In their final five games, through round robin play and the two playoff games, the U.S. never allowed more than two points in a single end. They outscored opponents 42-25. But more importantly, they played loose, and seemingly without any pressure – surprising given every game was a must win.
"We've played our best when our backs were up against the wall,” George said. “We took it to another level this week. Usually we're fighting and scrapping to get into the playoffs but for five days we were the best team in the world and we did it at the right time.
"We always knew we had it in us, but to do it when it matters most is what I'm most proud of overall."
Just making into the playoffs, with five teams fighting for two semifinal spots, and 16 different scenarios for what would happen on the last day of round robin play, that was more than just surprising. To defeat the best teams in the world on the way there was unprecedented.
“I'm proud of everybody here,” George said. “Just to get to a point where we felt like those types of things were automatic as opposed to fighting it all week, we were just so comfortable. We were talking before the game, we were laughing in the locker room, we're smiling, nobody was tight. We all said 'we belong here.' we were comfortable because we said 'this is our moment' and we went out and owned it tonight.”
Now Team USA will return home to Minnesota and Wisconsin with gold around their necks. More than that, they’ve gained fans along the way. Yes, there are the celebrities – J.J. Watt and Diddy tweeted their good lucks before the game, and Mr. T even called the team and told them he’s their “biggest fan” – but the U.S. as a whole has caught on.
On Twitter, #curling was the top trend on the U.S., and “Shuster” was second during the game. This was a game played at 1:30 a.m. EST, not exactly prime sports watching hour.
Curling clubs across the country are seeing increased interest like never before. One Curling Club member in Massachusetts tweeted to the official Team Shuster Twitter handle Saturday saying “We taught 40 people tonight have 200+ people signed up for Curl-a-palooza tomorrow morning.”
For a sport that just four years ago was at risk of losing financial support by the U.S. Olympic Committee, they could see an influx of athletes, young athletes, all hoping to be the next Shuster or Hamilton.
While this gold medal may be the first for the U.S., with so much new interest in the sport it very likely won’t be the last.
That’s historic.
“We knew so many friends and people in the stands. Some of the U.S. women’s hockey team that just won gold was in the stands, they’ve been cheering us on all week,” Hamilton said. “It just felt really great to share that moment with our family and our friends and to really be able to shine.”
While members of Shuster’s team may have been speechless Saturday night in PyeongChang, there will undoubtedly be many, many words written about them for years to come.
“It's incredible. I’ve told so many people that in 2006 when we stood on the podium and got our bronze medals it was one of the proudest moments of my life, but seeing somebody else standing on top and hearing another national anthem playing was really the fuel for everything for doing what I personally do and it was everything that I thought it might be and maybe a little bit more,” Shuster said.
"It's unbelievable, this whole last four years,” Hamilton said. “Just being on the cusp at the world championships. Getting bronze one year, coming fourth and fifth the other two years. We knew we were close, and to make the breakthrough here at the Olympics is just amazing."
After so much heartbreak, USA skip John Shuster found his love of curling again in PyeongChang
GANGNEUNG, South Korea – John Shuster, after falling to 2-4 and seemingly destined for a third straight Olympic failure, walked his family to the far exit of the Gangneung Curling Center late last Sunday night, put his 2- and 4-year-old sons on a bus and let his wife say everything she possibly could.
“To talk me off the ledge,” Shuster said. “I didn’t respond much.”
Shuster made his way to a grassy knoll after that defeat to Norway. He peered at the outside of the Olympic venue adorned with those five rings.
“I’m getting my heart broken by this sport,” Shuster told himself. “This is silly.”
Shuster had no problem sleeping that night. He woke up, checked social media (which he swore he wouldn’t do here after a nightmare past), and found the story of Dan Jansen.
Jansen, an Olympic speed skater, failed at two Olympics, just like Shuster, then took gold in his last Olympic race in 1994.
“He got back up, and he wrote his story, and he’s an Olympic champion,” Shuster said. “I’m so proud I was able to do something similar.”
Shuster stared his past failures in the face and on screens at these Olympics and grabbed gold with a team that dubbed themselves rejects a few years ago.
One loss from elimination, Shuster, Tyler George, Matt Hamilton and John Landsteiner won five straight games over six days to capture the U.S.’ first Olympic curling title with a 10-5 victory over Sweden in Saturday’s final.
In an Olympics of improbable results – think Ester Ledecka, the German hockey team upsetting Canada and Mikaela Shiffrin and Marcel Hirscher missing the slalom medals – this one came on the last full day of the competition. The last two U.S. Olympic teams led by Shuster went 4-14, and though this new Shuster team won a world bronze medal in 2016, it was not considered an Olympic medal favorite.
Few gold medalists here must feel as fulfilled as Shuster, a 35-year-old who also works once or twice a week as a Dick’s Sporting Good sales associate in Minnesota. He called it “a redemption story.”
In 2006, Shuster was an Olympic rookie on Pete Fenson’s team that took bronze, the first U.S. Olympic curling medal. Shuster decided he wanted to lead (or skip) his own team, so he branched off.
He won the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Trials, but his teams finished last and next-to-last at the Games. Shuster received the brunt of social media ridicule from fans of a sport that gains a cult following every four years.
His name became an Urban Dictionary verb for failure.
In 2010, Shuster was briefly benched. Not just demoted from skip, the man who leads strategy and throws the most important rocks, but taken out of the four-man lineup altogether.
“I’d say it’s pretty unprecedented, anywhere,” Chris Plys, the reserve who replaced Shuster for one game in Vancouver, said while ice fishing in Minnesota in a phone interview a few hours before Saturday’s final. “Having it being done on the Olympic stage was definitely very unprecedented.”
Shuster said his own poor play, missing critical shots, cost the 2010 team three games, according to The Associated Press.
“He wasn’t playing terrible,” Plys said. “He was just having a hard time finishing.”
Coach Phil Drobnick was the man who delivered the news after a team meeting that Shuster was out and Plys was in. Shuster spent the next game sitting next to the U.S. staff, watching Plys take his spot in the lineup.
Drobnick is coaching this year’s team. On Saturday night, he sat in the coaching area between alternate Joe Polo and Derek Brown, the director of the high performance team that an out-of-shape Shuster was cut from after the Sochi Olympics disaster. (George and Hamilton also didn’t make that team, so they formed their own team, calling themselves “rejects,” and later added Landsteiner.)
Here on Saturday night, Drobnick and Brown gave standing ovations to Shuster’s team after a five-point, double takeout from Shuster sealed gold. They stepped down from the box a few feet from the ice and hugged the team members before the medal ceremony.
“The heartbreak twice, two teams,” Drobnick reflected after. “[Shuster] handled it as well as he could handle it and learned from it. He has made himself into the best skip in the world.
“It’s a Cinderella story.”
Both Drobnick and Brown called Shuster the greatest U.S. Olympic curler of all time.
Shuster was asked to pick out a memory of his journey at past Olympics that made this victory sweeter. He didn’t pick 2010. He didn’t pick 2014.
“I look back at 2006 and standing on the podium and getting an Olympic medal and that being one of the most incredible moments of life,” Shuster said. “That’s when I knew that, for me, I wanted to go there, sing my national anthem on the top of a podium.”
They all sang. It capped a day and week that they’ll never forget.
Back home in the U.S., support swelled during the five-game streak.
It reached Shuster, who noted before the Olympics how horrible the social media vitriol was in 2010 and said, “As soon as we start our first game here, Twitter or any social media where people are going to be trolling will be turned off."
But Hamilton and his mustache gained a cult following as he played mixed doubles with his sister before the men’s tournament. Shuster peeked at all the fuss and noticed something else. People curling in their backyards after watching the men’s team play. Mr. T tweeting that he was a fan (and later calling them Saturday morning, as did Jansen). The actress Kirstie Alley getting into a Twitter spat with the team account handled during the Games by a USA Curling video man.
“Hilarious,” Shuster said. “It really lightened the mood. We enjoyed every second of the second half of this week.”
George, a 35-year-old liquor store owner in Duluth who laces up eight-year-old Skechers, said the team never talked about 2010 or 2014 after forming three years ago.
But in the back of his mind he wanted this badly for Shuster.
“When something you love so much brings you pain, it’s hard to rationalize … but when days like this happen you don’t think about that much anymore,” George said. “He never has to make a shot for the rest of his life to love the game.”
