U.S. hands Canada first loss of Olympic mixed doubles curling competition

Canada’s chance of going undefeated in mixed doubles curling has come to an end at Milano Cortina 2026..

The husband-and-wife duo of Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant dropped their first match of the competition against the United States, 7-5, on Friday. The loss drops Canada’s record to 3-1.

Through the first six ends, not much separated the two rivals with the game tied 4-4.

But USA’s Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin (3-0) changed that in the seventh end while using their power play.

Peterman was facing four U.S. stones while without hammer, and with no easy triple to limit the Americans from scoring a big end, she elected to try and freeze onto one of the rocks.

For seemingly the first time all week, Peterman was just a tad off, coming down heavy and bumping the U.S. stone, leaving an easy hit for Thiesse to score three to take a 7-4 lead.

The strong U.S. crowd, including Snoop Dogg, erupted, knowing how big of an end it was. 

With no opportunity for Canada to score three in the eighth end on Peterman’s final shot, they shook in defeat.

Peterman and Gallant will have the rest of the day off for the opening ceremony but will be back on the ice to play twice on Saturday. Canada meets Great Britain at 4:05 a.m. ET / 1:05 a.m. PT before facing Estonia at 1:05 p.m. ET / 10:05 a.m. PT.

Elsewhere in Draw 5, Italy beat Switzerland 12-4 and Great Britain beat Sweden 7-4.

The top four teams after nine round-robin games advance to the playoffs starting Monday.

At the 2022 Olympics, Canada’s pair of Rachel Homan and John Morris missed out on playoffs with a 5-4 record.