Kerri Einarson's Canada rink routs New Zealand 11-3 to open Pan Continental Championship

Kerri Einarson's Canada squad scored five in the eighth end to complete an 11-3 win over New Zealand on Monday in its opening match at the inaugural Pan Continental Curling Championships.

With Canada sitting four in the final end, Einarson drew for a fifth point on her last shot, leading to New Zealand conceding the game.

"We wanted to play our game and put some pressure on them," Einarson said. "We couldn't get lulled into the hitting game, and we thought that if we keep putting pressure on them, we'd get some opportunities and capitalize on them."

Einarson and her team from Gimli, Man., opened with the hammer and scored two points in the first end. Canada followed with a steal in the second to take an early 3-0 lead.

The heavily favoured Canadians responded with another sequence of a two-point end followed by a steal of one to go up 6-2.

New Zealand scored one in the sixth end to cut the lead to 6-3. After Einarson blanked the seventh end, the teams shook hands after Canada's five-point eighth.

Brad Gushue's crew of St. John's, N.L., opened the competition Monday afternoon with a 10-8 loss in 11 ends to the Korey Dropkin's team from the United States.

Gushue held a 4-3 lead after six ends, but in the seventh his team uncharacteristically struggled with draws at Calgary's WinSport Event Centre and the U.S. jumped on the miscues and scored four points to go up 7-4.

Canada's next game is against Brazil on Tuesday. Brazil dropped a 9-3 decision in seven ends to Chinese Taipei earlier on Monday.

The seven-day event is the qualification route for the 2023 world championships for all countries outside of Europe.

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