Canada’s road to Olympic mixed doubles playoffs gets a little tougher

CORTINA d’AMPEZZO, Italy — It was a Saturday that Canada’s Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant will be eager to forget about at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

The Chestermere, Alta., duo, along with team coach Laine Peters and national coach Scott Pfeifer, dropped a pair of games in Olympic mixed doubles play on Saturday at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium.

The losses dropped their record to 3-3, and almost surely in need of winning their final three round-robin games to lock up a spot in the four-team playoffs.

The Canadians opened the day falling 7-5 to Great Britain’s Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat (7-0, and assured of a playoff spot), and then dropped an 8-6 decision to Estonia’s Marie Kaldvee and Harry Lill (2-4) in the evening draw.

For the second straight game Saturday, Canada gave up a three in the first end. Kaldvee made a short raise for the big score, and it got worse an end later when Peterman was slightly wide and heavy with her last stone, gifting Estonia a steal of two.

Estonia added one more in the third when Peterman’s in-off to score a possible deuce didn’t curl enough. Caada finally hit the scoreboard in the fourth when Peterman made a raise takeout to score two; had her shot curled a hair more, it could have produced five.

Peterman and Galland did raise their game in the second half, holding Estonia to singles in the fifth and seventh ends, and getting a big three in the sixth on a precise come-around tap by Peterman.

But Kaldvee’s triple-takeout in the eighth snuffed out the Canadian comeback for good and put a capper on two-loss day.

“Bad throw on my last in in the first end, and some regrets there,” said Peterman. “After that I thought we were giving everything a chance and throwing them how we wanted and really working on reading the ice. We were just kind of on the wrong side of the inch or just ticking or just hitting one millimetre thinner than we needed. It was just one of those games. It was a bit of a grind but we stuck in there and fought right till the end.”

In the morning game, Dodds and Mouat were in control early when Dodds made a wonderful big-weight takeout to score three, and Canada never recovered.

Team Canada struggled with ice and stone conditions that had changed from the day before after stones were sandpapered at the close of play on Friday.

“It’s kind of like going from your municipal golf course to going to the greens at the U.S. Open,” said Gallant. “It was a much different speed and a different surface and, honestly, it just took us a little bit of time to adjust. We could feel it in practice but they got that little jump on us.”

Peterman and Gallant are on the ice twice on Sunday for a pair of crucial games — at 8:35 a.m. (all times Eastern) against Sweden’s Isabella Wranå and Rasmus Wranå (4-3) and then at 1:05 p.m. against South Korea’s Seon-yeong Kim and Yeong-Seok Jeong (1-5).

They will complete round-robin play on Monday at 4:05 a.m. against Switzerland’s Briar Schwaller-Hürlimann and Yannick Schwaller (3-3).

First place will play fourth place, and second place will meet third place in the semifinals, which are set for Tuesday at 12:05 p.m.

“We’re right in the thick of it,” said Gallant of the path ahead. “We were playing really good in the second half of the game so it’s just that we come out and we play that way right out of the gates we’ll be in good shape.”

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