For the very first time considering that the double-touch debate that took control of the Olympics in February, Oskar Eriksson and his Swedish colleagues will play a competitive guys’s 4 video game in Canada today.
Eriksson, the centerpiece of the entire thing, did play a week in Canada after the Olympics in 2015 at Rock League, where he was met light boos from the Toronto crowd.
With the Curling Group debuting the very first expert curling league in history, where curlers are positioned on a franchise and do not play with their routine groups, that minute was more about marking a turning point.
Will the fans in Victoria, B.C. boo the Swedish team throughout the week at the Grand Slam of Curling’s Co-op Invitational, particularly when Eriksson deals with Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs in a much-anticipated Olympic rematch on Friday?
It would be odd, thinking about the stereotype of curling fans, however that is simply among the stories to enjoy today throughout the very first Grand Slam of Curling occasion of the season.
What you require to understand
For the a lot of part, the Grand Slam of Curling guidelines that you recognized with at the end of last season will obtain the very first occasion of
Each group will have continue to have one blank per video game. Believing time is down another minute to 29 minutes from 30 minutes last season and timeouts will now be 60 seconds compared to 90 seconds in 2025-26. Both groups will get 2 per video game.
Additional ends will be a thing, however just in the semifinals and finals. If the video game is connected after 8 ends in the initial round, tiebreakers and quarterfinals, a shootout will identify the winner.
Groups to see throughout the week
Every group contending in the Co-op Invitational might be noted in this area. With numerous brand-new groups, the stories are apparent: How will they search in their very first huge competition together?
There is more meat on the bone than simply that. How will Jacobs, the safeguarding Olympic gold medallist who didn’t alter his lineup, appearance in the very first Grand Slam of the season? Will brand-new world males’s No. 1 Yannick Schwaller, from Switzerland, show his group should have that ranking?
Here is one group on each side you need to be paying additional attention to today.
Rachel Homan, Canada
It’s been a very long time because we’ve seen Homan’s team play a females’s 4 video game. The last video game they played together in competitors was their win in the bronze-medal video game at the Olympics.
Unlike some other groups, who have actually been on the ice completing given that August, Homan and her team have actually chosen to alleviate into the very first year of the quadrennial. When the 20-time Grand Slam champ from Ottawa requires to the ice today with her colleagues, it will be the group’s very first occasion of the 2026-27 season.
A strong week with a minimum of a semifinal berth, and no one will have fret about the reality they have not played a competition yet this season. A rough week, nevertheless, might trigger some Canadian curling fans to worry and consider if they need to’ve played in a couple occasions prior to the Grand Slam.
Oskar Eriksson, Sweden
In addition to playing in Canada for the very first time because the double-touch debate at the Olympics, today will likewise mark the very first time in almost 20 years the leading Swedish males’s group will not have Niklas Edin on it. Edin retired from the video game after last season, going out with a win at the world champion for the 8th time.
Now, the group he developed in 2017 will be avoided by Eriksson. Despite the fact that the group has actually won 6 world champions together, there will be a great deal of pressure on Eriksson and his fellow colleagues to continue having the very same kind of success. An excellent start to the Slam calendar would go a long method in showing they can compete for champions without the famous Edin.
Games circled around on the schedule
The schedule-makers truly understood what they were making with this occasion. There are numerous must-see matches throughout the week, however to keep the list short, here are 5 to concentrate on:
Draw 4 – Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 10 p.m. ET/ 7 p.m. PT
Rachel Homan vs. Kayla MacMillan
This will be the very first video game of the season for Homan’s team in ladies’s play. Homan will avoid the ‘roadway group’ as the ruling Olympic bronze medallists deal with a Victoria-based rink that has actually included Val Sweeting.
Draw 7 – Wednesday, Oct. 14 at 6:30 p.m. ET/ 3:30 p.m. PT
Brad Jacobs vs. Brendan Bottcher
Genuine test for Bottcher’s brand-new group to see where they stack up versus Canada’s finest in Jacobs.
Draw 11 – Thursday, Oct. 15 at 6:30 p.m. ET/ 3:30 p.m. PT
Xenia Schwaller vs. Alina Paetz
Fight of the very best 2 Swiss ladies’s groups. Paetz has actually beaten Schwaller in 3 finals this year. Schwaller won the world title last season.
Draw 14 – Friday, Oct. 16 at 3 p.m. ET/ 12 p.m. PT
Yannick Schwaller vs. Grant Hardie
Brand-new world No. 1 Schwaller, a cousin of Xenia, deals with Great Britain’s freshly formed Team Hardie, ranked 2nd worldwide.
Draw 16 – Friday, Oct. 16 at 10 p.m. ET/ 7 p.m. PT
Brad Jacobs vs. Oskar Eriksson
Time these 2 groups will deal with each other given that the double-touch drama at the Olympics.
The Co-op Invitational will be offered on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ beginning Tuesday with Draw 2 at 3 p.m. ET/ twelve noon PT. Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ will air 3 draws each day Tuesday through Friday. Sportsnet+ and CBC will bring the Saturday quarterfinals, while CBC will air the semifinals on Saturday night. Champion Sunday will see the females’s last on Sportsnet+ and males’s last on Sportsnet ONE.
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