8 Apr 2024 – Close, but not close enough. That was the story of NZ skip Anton Hood's last stone at the just-completed 2024 World Men's Curling Championship in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. And in many ways it also summed up New Zealand's tournament.

The Kiwis were looking for a consolation win in their last game against the Netherlands, and behind 5-6 after eight ends they blanked the ninth, ensuring that they would take hammer into the last end.

With his final stone to play, his team had two stones aligned to give him the first half of a double takeout to score two for the win. The first stone was taken out as planned but the redirected stone missed its second target by millimetres, handing the win to the Dutch.

This was the second consecutive World Championship for the side of Hood (skip), Ben Smith, Brett Sargon, Hunter Walker and Peter de Boer (alternate), supported by coach Carolyn McRorie and Warren Dobson.

They were the lowest-ranked of the 13-strong field but impressed many with their determination and ability to foot it with many of the top teams deep into the game, despite not gaining the elusive win. In the middle of the week they played two superb back-to-back games against the eventual finalists Canada and Sweden, taking the latter to the last stone.

Anton Hood offered no excuses. "We are disappointed with the results for the week," he said after the tournament. "We had higher expectations of ourselves."

"We have lots of learning and more opportunities to grow as a team. This highlights the work we must do to compete at this level consistently. It showed what we can achieve when we do play well and put ends together. The games against Sweden and Canada really showed that for us."

"The team will now debrief and continue to train and improve. We have the best coaching unit a team could ask for in Peter, Carolyn and Warren – and will lean heavily on them during the Naseby winter to continue to build."

"I'd like to add a massive thank you to all the families, supporters of the team and our sponsors. We will be back – we want results on the world stage!"

Teams outside the top-6 had their final placing determined by their round-robin position. Sweden beat Canada for the gold medal while Italy stole the bronze from Scotland in an extra end. Germany finished fifth and the USA sixth.

Despite finishing at the tail of the field New Zealand have earned an Olympic qualification point, and although the chance of earning direct entry to Torino 2026 is low, like the NZ Women they will have a pathway to the Games via other Qualification events.

• World Curling Tournament page
• World Curling: Turning heads: New Zealand curlers - the movie?!
• World Curling full results
• NZ Curling updates: Facebook / Instagram
• Team Hood Curling: Facebook / Instagram
• NZ record at World Men's Championship
• Streaming and replays at The Curling Channel

NZ Results

From left: Peter de Boer, Hunter Walker, Brett Sargon, Ben Smith, Anton Hood

 

Ben Smith, NZ v Czechia

 

Anton Hood, NZ v Japan

 

Ben Smith and Brett Sargon, NZ v Canada

 

Hunter Walker, NZ v Sweden

 

Brett Sargon (NZ), Oskar Eriksson and Niklas Edin (Sweden)

 

Anton Hood, NZ v USA

Peter de Boer

Carolyn McRorie, coach