FREDERICTON, N.B. -- Regina’s Randy Bryden is off to the start he was hoping for at the World Senior Men’s Curling Championship.
Bryden and his Team Canada foursome of third Troy Robinson, second Russ Bryden and lead Chris Semenchuk opened the massive 31-team tournament with a 6-3 over Belgium’s Stefan van Dijck on Saturday afternoon in Fredericton, N.B.
The tournament -- which features players 50 years and older -- is an open entry event, which means any country under the World Curling Federation umbrella can enter, leading to the large number of teams.
Canada is in a seven-team pool with Belgium, Portugal’s Vitor Santos, England’s Ken Horton, Wales’ Andrew Tanner, Ireland’s Bill Gray and the Netherlands' Bob Bomas.
Bryden got off to a good start against Belgium, scoring one in the first end, holding van Dijck to a single point in the second and scoring a pair in the third for a 3-1 edge.
Things turned into a low-scoring battle from there, as Belgium blanked the next two ends before taking one in the sixth.
Bryden then blanked the eighth to secure the hammer heading into the final end, but Belgium would come through with the single point to tie the game 3-3 heading into an extra end.
There, Canada regained their stride and would put up three to secure the 6-3 victory.
Bryden and crew are back on the ice at 5 p.m. Moose Jaw time Sunday against Portugal before playing England at 1 p.m. Monday, Wales at 5 a.m. Tuesday, Ireland at 9 a.m. Wednesday and Netherlands at 9 a.m. Thursday.
The teams are broken into five round robin pools, with the top two teams in each group and the two third ranked teams with the better draw shot challenge score qualifying for the playoff beginning Friday.
Teams will be ranked 1-12 by comparing the DSC of the teams with the same rank from each group. Teams ranked one-to-four get a bye to the quarter-finals, teams ranked 5-12 will play qualification games on Thursday night, with the winners going on to the quarterfinals.
The semifinals will take place on Friday, May 2, followed by the medal games on Saturday, May 3.
You can keep up with all the scores at .
