Canada's skip Kevin Koe (front) reacts as he watches a shot next to Sweden's lead Christoffer Sundgren in the semi-final of their World Men's Curling Championships in Beijing April 5, 2014.CHINA DAILY/Reuters
Canada's Kevin Koe will have to settle for playing for bronze at the world men's curling championship.
The Calgary skip fell 10-8 to Sweden's Oskar Eriksson in semifinal action Saturday and will face Switzerland's Peter de Cruz for the bronze medal. Earlier, Koe lost 3-2 to Norway's Thomas Ulsrud in the Page 1-2 playoff game.
"It was a bad day," said Koe. "We played pretty decent for the most part, I thought we were throwing them good.
"But big misses at the wrong time, and those will obviously kill you in the big games."
The Canadian team — including third Pat Simmons, second Carter Rycroft and lead Nolan Thiessen — took an early lead by opening with a deuce. But Sweden rallied with four in the second after a freeze attempt by Koe came up short.
"Just one bad miss — that's all it took," said Koe. "If I made my last one, we probably only give up one or two.
"Just a bad miss at the wrong time."
The teams traded singles the next two ends. Canada missed a chance to tie it with two in the fifth and Sweden took complete control with three in the sixth after Koe's last-rock freeze attempt was heavy.
The Canadians scored two in the seventh and stole one in the eighth but that's as close as they'd get.
"I'm a little devastated right now," said Rycroft. "I don't know what it was, if it was a lack of confidence on our part or still not trusting the ice.
"But we missed way too many shots on the wrong side. Good curlers missing easy shots is not going to win you many games."
Canada has won 49 world curling championship medals, including 34 gold. Nine times Canadians have settle for silver and bronze on six occasions.
"We'll show up and try our hardest to win," said Koe. "I mean, it'll be hard, we're disappointed — we came here thinking we'd be in that gold-medal game . . . but we'll be trying to win a medal."
Canada also lost 6-2 to Sweden in the round-robin portion of the tournament.
Sweden will face Ulsrud in the final.
Ulsrud, who finished second to Koe at the 2010 world championship, will be seeking his first title in 10 appearances at the event.
Sweden's Niklas Edin won last year's event in Victoria.