Gushue takes down Sweden at men's curling worlds, setting up quarterfinal rematch

Brad Gushue's busy start to round-robin play was bookended by a run of split shifts at the world men's curling championship in Ottawa.

His Canadian team fought through the inconsistent timing to qualify for the playoffs at TD Place. The St. John's, N.L.-based side will enter weekend play on a roll after a pair of victories Friday.

"When I looked at our schedule it was kind of, 'Who did I piss off at the World Curling Federation?'," Gushue joked. "We started off [playing] four of the first five draws and then we finished with mornings and nights for three days in a row.

"I was like, 'Whoa, this is tough."'

Gushue, vice Mark Nichols, second E.J. Harnden and lead Geoff Walker tuned up for the playoffs on Friday morning with a 9-5 victory over Turkey's Ugurcan Karagoz.

WATCH | Gushue tops Turkey:

Canada (9-3) wrapped up its round-robin schedule in the evening with an 8-5 win over defending champ Niklas Edin of Sweden (9-3) in a rematch of last year's final.

Gushue scored four points in the fifth end and made a hit for three in the seventh that essentially put it away.

The teams will square off again Saturday in a qualification game. Gushue will have hammer as the No. 4 seed.

"We haven't necessarily played our game yet this week," Gushue said. "So hopefully we're saving it up for the weekend."

Top-seeded Yannick Schwaller of Switzerland (11-1) and No. 2 Bruce Mouat of Scotland (10-2) earned direct berths to the semifinals.

WATCH | That Curling Show — Gushue prepares to face world's best on home ice:

Italy's Joel Retornaz (8-4) secured the sixth and final seed Friday morning with a 12-5 win over Japan's Riku Yanagisawa. Italy will face No. 3 Magnus Ramsfjell of Norway (10-2) in the other qualification game.

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