Canada's Matt Dunstone delivers a stone during a quarterfinal match against Italy at the world men's curling championships on April 3, 2026, in Ogden, Utah. (AP Photo/Tyler Tate)

By The Canadian Press

Dunstone beats Scotland 9-7 in semis, will play for world men’s curling gold

Apr 3, 2026 | 12:01 PM

OGDEN — Canada’s Matt Dunstone will be playing for a gold medal on Saturday at the world men’s curling championship.

The Winnipeg-based team defeated Scotland 9-7 in a thrilling semifinal Friday evening, scoring a deuce in the ninth to go ahead 8-7 and then stealing one in the 10th to beat Ross Whyte’s squad.

The teams were tied 3-3 after five ends, Scotland went up 5-3 in the sixth and Canada scored three in the seventh to take a 6-5 lead. Scotland responded with a deuce in the eighth to go ahead 7-6.

Earlier in the day, Canada defeated Italy’s Stefano Spiller 9-7 in a qualification game.

Dunstone, who was down one point but had hammer in the 10th end, made a double-takeout to score three points for the victory.

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Sporting an ear-to-ear grin after punching his ticket to the championship final, Dunstone joked: “I’m really happy we get to sleep in on Saturday morning. And obviously play in the final, too.”

Dunstone, third Colton Lott, second E.J. Harnden and lead Ryan Harnden, will face Niklas Edin’s team from Sweden, who beat the host United States 8-6 in an extra end in Friday’s other semifinal.

“It feels incredible; what a game today,” said E.J. Harnden, who’ll cap his brilliant career on Saturday as he retires from competitive curling following the event. “What a battle. The perseverance, the grit that we showed as a team, as a unit, all day today was incredible.

“We always continued to support one another, made some amazing shots down the stretch and it was just phenomenal. I can’t wait to play in a world championship final with this team.”

Sweden, Scotland and Canada all finished the round robin portion of the 13-team championship with 10-2 record, but Canada placed third on a draw tiebreaker, forcing Dunstone to play Friday morning’s qualifying game against Italy, which qualified for the playoffs with an 8-4 record.

Canada beat Sweden 10-3 in six ends in Tuesday’s round-robin meeting. Dunstone will be aiming to win Canada’s first world men’s championship since Team Brad Gushue prevailed in 2017.

“Just because of the magnitude of the game, nothing has to change,” said Dunstone. “I mean, we just beat one of the best teams in the world and did a lot of good things. We’re going to have to do the same (Saturday) and I think we can take a lot of confidence knowing that there’s not a thing different that we have to do.

” … It’s going to be an emotional day (Saturday). I’m just really proud to be a part of it (with) one of the all-time greats. It’s been an absolute pleasure to compete with him (E.J. Harnden) and to play with him, to win with him and (if) we have one more win in us (Saturday), what better way to go out than to have E.J. as a world champion and all of us as world champions.”

Scotland and John Shuster’s U.S. squad will play for bronze Saturday morning.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 3, 2026.

The Canadian Press