Camera courtesy of Voth's Countrywide Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1

The playoff picture is now complete at the Ford World Women's Curling Championships in Swift Current.

Cecilia Ostlund and Team Sweden will play for a medal, and Erika Brown and the Americans are eliminated, after Sweden beat the USA 11-8 in this afternoon's tie-breaker.

 

Ostlund has said they've already exceeded expectations by placing in a tie for 4th, as their goal was a 6th-place finish in their first World's.  She says they're so excited to play in the playoffs, and they're going to go have fun and play as good as they can.

 

Sweden moves on to play Scotland in tomorrow's 3 vs 4 page playoff game.

 

The 1 vs 2 game goes tonight with Jennifer Jones and Team Canada squaring off with Andrea Schopp and Germany.

The Germans handed Canada their only loss of the round robin, but Schopp says that will not give them any added confidence tonight.  She says they knew they could beat them, and noted that she said at the beginning that every team has a chance to win this event.

 

Meanwhile, the Jones rink has finished 1st overall, and has a better playoff position than last year in South Korea, where they lost the 3 vs 4 game, and then the bronze medal match.  She says it feels a bit different now, adding that last year, they had to win a bunch of games to get to the gold medal final, and now they are in the 1 vs 2 game.  She adds that they're playing well as a team; everyone is stepping up to make the big shots, and hopefully that will continue in the playoffs.

 

The winner tonight plays for gold on Sunday, while the loser will have the second chance in the semi-final tomorrow night, where they'll play the winner of the 3 vs 4 game.

The action starts at 8:00pm from the Credit Union iplex, and another huge pro-Canada crowd is expected.