Ross Paterson rounded off a near perfect final end by his team with a well judged take out of a semi frozen opposition stone to earn a hard-fought 5-4 victory over an experienced Italy side in their opening match at the LGT World Men’s Curling Championships in Las Vegas.
Led by Joel Retornaz, who has skipped teams at three Winter Olympics and eight World Championships and with newly crowned Olympic mixed doubles champion Amos Mosaner playing at third, the Italians always looked like being dangerous opponents for a Scottish line-up that was playing at its first World Championships together. 
While Paterson and lead Craig Waddell set the tone for what was to be a good start by their team when both hit the button in the pre-match last stone draw challenge to earn the hammer at the opening end, they knew they were likely to be made to battle all the way and so it proved.
They were forced to take just one at the opening end, but had the better of the tight early exchanges as they applied pressure over the next three ends, resulting in a brace of steals either side of a blanked third end as they worked their way into a 3-0 lead.
Their opponents finally got on the scoreboard with what was to be the only multiple score of the match as they scored two at the fifth end, but Paterson was pleased at that stage with the way he and teammates Kyle Waddell, Duncan Menzies and Craig Waddell had settled to their task.
“It felt great to be out on the ice with the boys,” he said.
“We’ve been here since Monday and had that build-up over the last few days, so everybody’s excited to get started and it was good to get on and obviously the goal in the first game is just a win.
“It doesn’t really matter who you are playing against, you want to get off to a good start and we managed to do that, getting the hammer with two good draw shots and then controlling the first half of the game with a couple of steals to put us three up.”
The skip, who is the only member of the Scottish team to have played at a World Championship previously, accepted responsibility for the error that allowed the Italians to work their way back into the match with a steal at the eighth after the teams had forced one another at the previous two ends.
“Italy are a good team. They were always going to be tough to shake off and in the second half we probably dipped a little bit and they stepped up and managed to tie the game,” Paterson acknowledged.
“In the eighth end I had a light tap back, soft weight take-out for two that I’d normally make, but I missed it and we gave up the steal which tied the game.
“It’s probably a shot that I just had to trust how much the ice was curling and I’ll be confident that if I’ve got the same shot again I’ll make it, but that was one of those situations where I’m not really on top of the line yet and knowing exactly what I was going to do.”
That made for a tense finish to the match, but Menzies and Kyle Waddell did a fine job of keeping the rink clear at the ninth end to allow Paterson to blank it by removing Retornaz’s solitary counting stones with each of his deliveries to retain the hammer at the last.
While an experimental rule that is being trialled at these championships, preventing teams from shifting guards away from the centre of the rink made the last end slightly tougher to negotiate than would previously have been the case, Paterson then held his nerve to secure the win.
“At the last end we were tied coming home and usually in those situations your lead gets the opportunity to play a couple of ticks, but with the ‘no tick’ rule things are a little bit different, so there were a few more stones in play,” he pointed out. 
“Italy played a good end, so I had a shot for the game that was maybe slightly tougher than you would usually have in that scenario, but we made it, so we’re just delighted to win.”
While the Scots are enjoying the environment in Las Vegas, conditions in the Orleans Hotel and scheduling made for additional challenges as they looked ahead to a two-game second day of action, facing Korea and Norway.
“We’re back on at nine in the morning against Korea, which is a quick turn around and it’s very hot in the arena, so we’ve got to make sure we re-fuel now and try to get showered, a good sleep and then use the learnings we’ve got from the ice tonight and take the confidence from the first win into that game and build on what we’ve done so far,” said Paterson.
“So far, so good, though. We’re happy with how the boys played in general, nothing too much standing out, it was just a good overall performance.”
Team Scotland
Ross Paterson (vice-skip)
Kyle Waddell (skip)
Duncan Menzies
Craig Waddell
Euan Kyle (alternate)
Broadcast games on The Curling Channel in partnership with Recast.
Tuesday 5 April
22:00 — Scotland v United States
Friday 8 April
17:00 — Scotland v Canada
19:00 — Scotland v Switzerland
Saturday 9 April
03:00 — Qualification Game 1
22:00 — Qualification Game 2
03:00 — Semi-final 1 (TBD)
03:00 — Semi-final 2 (TBD)
Sunday 10 April
19:00 — Bronze medal game
00:00 midnight — Gold medal game
Schedule and results:
Saturday 2 April
Scotland – Italy 5-4
Sunday 3 April
Scotland – Korea
Scotland – Norway
Monday 4 April
Scotland – Denmark
Scotland – Germany
Tuesday 5 April
Scotland – USA
Scotland – Finland
Wednesday 6 April
Scotland – Czech Republic
Thursday 7 April
Scotland – Netherlands
Scotland – Sweden
Friday 8 April
Scotland – Canada
Scotland – Switzerland
Saturday 9 April
Qualifications games
Semi finals
Sunday 10 April
Bronze medal game
Gold medal game
#curling #WMCC2022
