FREDERICTON, N.B. -- After enduring a close call in their opening game at the World Senior Men’s Curling Championship, Canada’s Randy Bryden left nothing to chance in their second contest on Sunday afternoon.
Bryden and his Regina Callie foursome of third Troy Robinson, second Russ Bryden and lead Chris Semenchuk roared out to a 7-1 lead after three ends and never looked back on their way to a 15-2 victory over Portugal’s Vitor Santos at the 31-team tournament in Fredericton.
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 Portugal, Belgium’s Stefan Van Dijck, England’s Ken Horton, Wales’ Andrew Tanner, Ireland’s Bill Gray and the Netherlands' Bob Bomas.
Bryden wasted little time getting going Sunday after battling to an extra end win over Belgium one day earlier, stealing three in the first end, holding Santos to one in the second and scoring four more in the third.
Things were all but academic from there, with Bryden stealing another three in the fourth for a 10-1 lead, and after Portugal scored one in the fifth, Canada racked up another five in the sixth to bring things to an early end.
Bryden and crew are back on the ice at 1 p.m. Moose Jaw time Monday against England before facing 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.
Standings in Bryden’s Group A after two days are as follows:
Canada 2-0
England 2-0
Belgium 1-1
Ireland 1-1
Portugal 1-1
Netherlands 0-2
Wales 0-2
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 .
