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.
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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.
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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.
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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
Twitter got a little excited after the U.S. men's team won the first curling gold in Team USA history.
The U.S. won its first curling gold medal after beating Sweden 10-7 early Saturday morning. The country stayed up until after 4 a.m. ET to watch what has been dubbed the "miracurl on ice" and to tweet about the country's new favorite sport.
Mr. T jumped on the curling bandwagon early, and even called the team before the gold-medal game. Needless to say, he's quite pleased.
The LA Kings were also watching and waiting.
Team USA finishes the PyeongChang games on a five game winning streak, finishing with a 10-7 defeat of Sweden
The U.S. was on the brink of elimination less than a week ago.
In order to win a gold medal, they would have to beat 3-time defending Olympic gold medalists Canada twice, Switzerland, Great Britain and World No. 1 ranked Sweden.
No problem.
For the fifth straight game John Shuster and Team USA rattled the best curlers in the world, and again came away with a win for the U.S.'s first ever Olympic curling gold medal by defeating Sweden 10-7.
The U.S., with Shuster, Tyler George, Matt Hamilton and John Landsteiner, had two strategies coming in - limit Sweden's scoring and avoid the big end, and messy up the house with yellow rocks to force Sweden to make plays.
Sweden looked rattled at times, and missed several big shots as the tension of the game seemed to get to the young players. Both teams were playing with skips who have Olympic experience - four Games for Shuster and three for Sweden's Niklas Edin - but other players were younger and not used to games of this magnitude.
It never seemed to rattle the U.S. though. They continued to put on the pressure on, and that wasn't more apparent than in the eighth end. Sweden took a timeout, and subsequently missed the next shot as the U.S. continued to fill the house. Edin's final throw landed on the hammer, surrounded by four U.S. stones, and Shuster, like he's done so much the last four games, came through. A perfect throw that barely required sweeping went right through the house for the takeout and a huge five point end for the U.S. to double their score and take a 10-5 lead with two ends to play.
"Tell you what it was a lot of fun," Shuster said after the game. "And that's where the week changed for us and changed for me was to allow myself to go out there and enjoy it and let the work show through. Holy cow."
It was the first 5-point end the U.S. has had in these Olympics. They've had only one 4-point and five 3-point ends leading up to this game.
Both times Sweden put up two the U.S. responded with two of their own.
Sweden purposefully blanked the first end after both teams quickly ran through rocks, none of which stayed. Edin's team was able to pick up two with hammer in the second after Edin threw a perfect rock inside the 4-foot and Shuster missed a runback takeout with his final throw, giving Edin an easy throw inside for the double.
Shuster didn't miss again though. Sweden lied one in the 4-foot and had another biting on the right side. Shuster could have played it safe and simply landed onto the button, but he instead tested his hot hand and went for the double, knocking it in perfectly to put two on the board for the U.S.
Shuster struggled early, shooting below 70 percent in the first half, but he picked it up in the second when it mattered. Edin, on the other hand, started fantastic, shooting 91 percent in the first three ends, but finished with just a 75 percent shot success rate.
"I think what I was able to accomplish and come this this week is definitely a story that we can have forever," Shuster said. "I'm speechless for a change in my life."
The U.S. stole another in the fourth to take their first lead, 3-2, after Edin's takeout attempt wasn't quite strong enough, and a measurement showed the yellow stone to just slightly closer.
But the gold medal game wasn't meant to be easy for either team. George came up with a huge takeout for put four inside for the U.S., but three throws later Edin landed his throw on the button, and Shuster's takeout attempt was too heavy, missing and allowing Sweden to finish the end with two points to retake the lead.
And again the U.S. responded with two. Edin threw a second bad shot for Sweden in the end, missing a takeout in the 4-foot, again setting up an easy lay in for Shuster. The U.S. led 5-4 through six ends of play.
Shuster gets the credit for making big shots as the skip, but every member of Team USA came up with big shots at a big time. Tyler George made a perfect double takeout on his second throw to lie two for the U.S. in the third. Hamilton had a double of his own in the seventh to clear the house and lie three for the U.S.
All five wins have been team efforts for the U.S., which they needed after falling 2-4 to start the tournament and playing five straight must-win games.
"On the morning of February 19, Matt's (Hamilton), 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."
Sweden wins the silver medal for the second time since curling returned to the Olympics in 1998. Switzerland won the bronze by defeating Canada early Friday morning.
