After another topsy-turvy day at the World Wheelchair Curling Championships, Scotland will head into their final round-robin match against Italy knowing that victory will take them into the play-off stages.
A tense 6-5 victory over Norway put them on the brink of qualification for the knockout rounds and World Championship debutant Jo Butterfield paid tribute to her veteran teammate Gregor Ewan for the way he dealt with the pressure at the key stage.
“It didn’t all go our way against Norway,” she admitted. 
“We were put through a bit of a test, but we put in a solid performance.
“They’re a team we know pretty well and it’s always pretty close and, as he’s done that a number of times this week, Gregor had to pull off a blinder of a shot at the last end to get us the victory.
“We really need to acknowledge that. I, for one, coming into the game, really look at him and see that and aspire to get to know the game and feel the game as well as he can.
“So, we got the win and went into the evening game knowing we’d bounced back again, shown that resilience and were united as a team and feeling really positive, looking forward to the game against China.”
The power of reigning Paralympic and World champions ultimately proved too much, however, as they suffered a 9-2 defeat, to leave them with a record of five wins and five losses, with everything depending on that clash with the Italians.
“China are something different,” said Butterfield.
“I hadn’t seen them play before, but I’d seen they’d had a lot of good wins this week and because we’ve been playing I’ve not really been able to see them, but you do hear them and now I’ve played them I can see why they are Paralympic and World champions. They are a very special team.
“They can hit the rocks harder than I’ve ever seen, they execute their shots very, very well, they can draw the button and they make very few mistakes.
“We went into that game wanting to test them, so we went out to try to be quite aggressive against them, to try to force them into playing shots they weren’t necessarily that comfortable with.
“They are very comfortable at playing a hitting game, so we wanted to try to avoid that if we could and we gave it a good go.”
She explained how the tone was set from the outset.
“We were looking like we were in good position for a steal at the first end until their skip pulled off an exceptional shot to knock one out and take a three,” said Butterfield.
“We dug deep after that, stuck to our processes, held it pretty tight and it was close for the next five ends and we saw them start to miss a few shots, while we started to make a few shots, so it wasn’t over until we went hard for a steal and they came up with a big score in the seventh end.”
It was an experience which offered them perspective, however, in terms of both their long and short-term goals. 
“It didn’t feel like we were completely out-played in the way the score suggested, but we came off the ice knowing where we’ve got to be,” Butterfield observed.
“We need to get better to be able to match them and there’s work to be done to get there, but it’s not insurmountable.
“We might not do it today or tomorrow, but we’ve got a few years to build this team and this squad and work our way up to beating China at the Paralympics, which is what we thought about as we came out of that match.
“We weren’t totally demoralised and the way the table is now sitting and we go in to tomorrow’s game against Italy knowing that if we win we will qualify for the play-offs.
“Coming into the tournament we would want to be in that position, knowing that we have it in our hands, in our control.
“We’ve played the games we have so far to achieve this.
“Italy is a different scenario again, a team we know we can beat and have beaten, but we need to focus on us, our processes, our game and if we play to our best we are confident it’s one we can win.”
Scotland’s mixed doubles team also enjoyed another win, beating Switzerland 11-3 while England lost out to hosts Canada 9-1, in only their second defeat of the round robin stages.
Scotland Team Results
Day One
Scotland – Korea 4-6
Scotland – USA 4-7
Day Two
Scotland – Sweden 10-1
Scotland – Denmark 6-4
Day Three
Scotland – Latvia 3-6
Scotland – Czech Republic 9-3
Day Four
Scotland – Japan 6-2
Scotland – Canada 1-8
Day Five
Scotland – Norway
Scotland – China
Day Six
Scotland - Italy
England Team Mixed Doubles Results
Day One
England – Italy 7-6
Day Two
England – Sweden 9-4
England – Latvia 4-8
Day Three
England – Korea 6-5
Day Four
England – Japan 6-4
Day Five
England – Canada 1-9
Day Six
England - Germany
Scotland Team Mixed Doubles Results
Day One
Scotland - Hungary 3-9
Day Two
Scotland - China 3-10
Day Three
Scotland – Slovakia 0-8
Scotland – Norway 6-11
Day Four
Scotland – Estonia 10-9
Dave Five
Scotland – Switzerland 11-3
Day Six
Scotland - Finland
The World Wheelchair Curling Championships and World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Champs are being run in parallel at the Richmond Curling Centre in British Columbia (4-12 March).
The participating 12 teams in the World Wheelchair Curling Championships are hosts Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and United States.
The World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Champs participating teams are:
Group A: China, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Switzerland and United States.
Group B: Canada, Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia and Sweden.
Please click here for more information from the World Curling Federation.
Watch games on Recast
Scotland Mixed Doubles Team:
Charlotte McKenna
David Melrose
England Mixed Doubles Team
Rosemary Lenton
Stewart Pimblett
Scotland Team:
Jo Butterfield (MBE)
Meggan Dawson-Farrell
Gregor Ewan
Gary Logan
Hugh Nibloe
IMAGES: WCF/Cheyenne BOONE
#curling #WWhCC2023 #WWhMDCC2023
