Canada’s Team Dunstone completes a perfect Monday at LGT World Men’s Championship

OGDEN, Utah — It was a magnificent Monday for Canada’s Team Matt Dunstone at the 2026 LGT World Men’s Curling Championship.

The Winnipeg team completed a two-win day Monday night at the Weber County Ice Sheet by defeating Japan’s Team Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi (2-5) 8-3. With the victory, Dunstone, vice-skip Colton Lott, second E.J. Harnden, lead Ryan Harnden, alternate Geoff Walker, team coach Caleb Flaxey and national coach Jeff Stoughton improved to 4-2 and firmly in the race for one of the six available playoff positions.

Dunstone broke the game open in the seventh with a wonderful long raise takeout to score four.

The doldrums of back-to-back losses on Saturday and Sunday were long forgotten as the Canadian team looked much like the one that claimed gold at the 2026 Montana’s Brier, presented by AGI, earlier this month in St. John’s, N.L., with command of weight, broom position and line-calling.

“Obviously we had to bounce back,” said Dunstone. “It was two tough days, getting blown out like that (by Scotland on Saturday and the United States on Sunday). We had to get momentum back on our side, and get this team humming like we know it can and what we’re used to. I think we accomplished that today. I think we’re getting a really good handle and feel for the ice now.”

It didn’t start superbly, though; Japan’s last-rock thrower Riku Yanagisawa made a perfect hit-and-roll to the button, buried, and Dunstone couldn’t move it with his last stone, resulting in a steal for the Japanese.

But Dunstone wasn’t rattled; he made two excellent shots in response in the second — a double-takeout, and then a cold draw to the side of the button to score a go-ahead deuce.

“That was huge,” said Lott. “It was such a momentum swing and it just put us in the driver’s seat from then on. We saw the Matt today who won the Brier, the phenomenal Matt we always see.”

Japan was forced to a single in the third, and after blanking the fourth, Dunstone had to take a single in the fifth to make it a 3-2 lead for Canada.

Team Dunstone applied more pressure in the sixth, and Japan needed a great front-end sweep to get a single point, looking at three Canadian counters.

That set the stage for Dunstone’s heroics in the seventh, and Japan conceded an end later after giving up a steal of one.

To say the least, it’s a different Canadian team than the one that was on the ice Saturday and Sunday.

“You sit in the hack and when you’re not thinking about anything, then that’s the way it should be,” said Dunstone of the rediscovered confidence. “In seven, that’s what we felt in that spot (in the ice) and the weight and E.J. (sweeping) on the inside (to hold the line). Typically, when you nail the weight, a lot of good things are going to happen.”

It was Lott’s best game of the championship; he shot 97 per cent, and his shots were anything but routine.

“I think he’s the best player in the country,” said Dunstone of his longtime teammate. “I’ll tell that to anybody who listens. It’s a privilege getting to watch him operate around a sheet of ice. He’s the man; we love having him.”

It’s another morning-night split day for Team Canada on Tuesday. At 11 a.m. (all times Eastern), Team Dunstone plays China’s Team Xiaoming Xu 3-3), and then at 9 p.m., Canada plays Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin (7-0).

In other Monday night games, the Swedes remained perfect with a 9-4 win over Norway’s Team Andreas Haarstad (0-6); Italy’s Team Stefano Spiller (4-3) toppled South Korea’s Team Changmin Kim (2-5) 9-4; and Switzerland’s Team Marco Hoesli (6-1) shaded Germany’s Team Marc Muskatewitz (4-3) 7-6.

China, Scotland’s Team Ross Whyte (4-2), Team John Shuster of the United States (3-3), Czechia’s Team Lukas Klima (2-4), and Poland’s Team Konrad Stych (1-5) all had byes on Monday night.

TSN/RDS2, the official broadcast partners of Curling Canada’s Season of Champions, will provide live coverage of Canada’s round-robin games, in addition to all playoff games. CLICK HERE for their complete broadcast schedule.

The list of teams, schedule information, and live scoring can be found by CLICKING HERE.

This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/fr/nouvelles-media/.