Nova Scotia team wins world senior men's curling championship

A Nova Scotia men's team captured the gold medal Saturday at the world senior men's curling championship in Ostersund, Sweden.

Skip Paul Flemming of Halifax and teammates Peter Burgess, Kris Granchelli and Martin Gavin defeated the U.S. 4-3 in the championship match to cap an undefeated week.

Flemming's team scored the deciding point with the final shot.

In a release from Curling Canada, Flemming said it might not have been the hardest shot of his career, but it was among them. He credited a Burgess shot for clearing a space for the deciding last rock.

"Peter kind of tidied it up there for me," he said. "I was just really feeling it on my last shot. I was just really seeing it, and we have really good sweepers, so I wanted to use them. They brought it back enough to make it."

The players celebrated a moment that has been decades in the making for all of them.

"We all have had jobs — I had opportunities to play higher competitive levels early on, but you know life is life," Burgess, whose brother Craig and nieces Karlee and Lindsey have won world curling titles, said in the release.

"This is a really cool opportunity to compete at this level, and to put the Maple Leaf on your back, and to win something like this for Canada is amazing."

Flemming said he was thrilled to share the win with his teammates.

"They were incredible, especially these last few games," he said. "It was well-earned, and quite honestly I feel like it was well-deserved. We worked really hard."

The Canadian men have now won five straight men's titles since 2018. The 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is the first world senior men's title for a Nova Scotia foursome. Colleen Jones and Colleen Pinkney are past champions on the women's side.

Flemming's team won the right to represent Canada at the world championships by defeating Saskatchewan in the national final earlier this season in Vernon, B.C.

It marked Flemming's first chance on the world stage after coming close in the past. He was part of a Nova Scotia team skipped by Shawn Adams in 2005 that lost the Brier final to Alberta on the final shot.

The Canadian senior women's team skipped by Susan Froud of Alliston, Ont., also won gold in Sweden. Froud, Kerry Lackie, Kristin Turcotte and Julie McMullin defeated Lithuania 7-3 in the final.

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