World Junior Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2025
Curlers love to talk about the “wrong side of the inch,” but it was the “right side” on a measurement that was pivotal for Team Canada to score a vital 8-7 win over Team Turkey on Thursday evening at the Booster Juice World Junior Mixed Doubles Championship.
A seventh-end measurement at the Saville Community Sports Centre in Edmonton went the way of Team Canada’s Dominique Vivier (Navan, Ont.) and Nick Codner (Torbay, N.L.). The measure gave Turkey’s Burcu Hasil and Muhammed Taha Zenir a deuce instead of three and a 7-7 tie. That allowed Canadians, alongside coach Laura Walker, to need just a single in the final end to get the win.
“We thought it was us, but you always get that little pit in your stomach when it comes to a measurement,” Codner said of the moments watching the measure. “That was a huge moment to only have to get one coming home.”
Team Canada got the winning single without throwing the last stone when Turkey’s Hasil came up short on a freeze attempt.
It was a difficult and crucial win for the Canadians, who gave up single steals in the first, second and fifth ends. But they scored three in the third and then used their powerplay to score four in the sixth for a 7-5 margin.
“The power play was huge,” said Vivier, who buried her first shot behind cover, ultimately opening the way for the big score. “We knew it was going to be faster going down that path … I think that’s why we won, we knew exactly what to throw before each throw.”
The Canadians held Turkey to the deuce in seven. Vivier’s hit-and-roll to be the counting shot left Turkey a chance for three, but Hasil’s shot rolled just far enough to cut the score to two.
“When I hit and rolled, I wanted to be a bit more buried so she didn’t have that shot,” Vivier said after being congratulated by a contingent that included Curling Canada officials David Murdoch and Jeff Stoughton. “It was quite close. We knew in that end we can’t give up more than two.”
“It was a great back-and-forth game,” added Codner. “We knew we had to come out sharper than yesterday. Every time we gave them a little opening, they took it. We were fortunate to get a couple of misses there in the eighth end, and we made a really good shot.”
The young Canadians have two pivotal games upcoming. They play Team England on Friday at 12:30 p.m. (all times MT) and Team Switzerland on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. Between those two games, Canada plays Team Ukraine on Friday at 6:30 p.m.
The world championship is an open event with 29 teams competing, split into four groups to play five days of round-robin competition. The top two teams in each division advance to the quarter-finals on Saturday at 6 p.m.
Canada is in a pool with teams from Korea, Switzerland, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey, England and Romania.
After play Thursday, Team Switzerland topped the pool at 3-0, followed by Team England and Team South Korea at 3-1, Team Canada at 2-1, Team Turkey and Team Ukraine at 1-3 and Team Romania winless at 0-4.
Team Italy tops Pool A at 4-0, China lead Pool B at 4-0, and Team Germany heads Pool D at 5-0.
The semifinals go Sunday at 10 a.m. followed by the bronze-medal and gold-medal games at 3 p.m.
Select games are available to stream through Curling Stadium.
For the latest scores, draw and list of teams, CLICK HERE.
