Held for the first time outside of Europe, the World Mixed Curling Championships start on Saturday on Kelowna, British Columbia (CAN), with 35 teams entered.
This is an open-entry event (no qualification) for four-person teams with two men and two women. There are four pools, with the winner to advance to the quarterfinals and the second- and third-place teams in play-in games to reach the quarters:
∙ Group A: Belarus, England, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Kazakhstan, Scotland, Turkey and Wales.
∙ Group B: Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and United States.
∙ Group C: Croatia, Czech Republic, Spain, Estonia, France, Latvia, Poland, Sweden and Chinese Taipei.
∙ Group D: Austria, Canada, Hungary, Japan, Norway, New Zealand, Slovenia and Slovakia.
Round-robin play in each group will continue through the 18th, with the playoffs on the 19th and 20th.
The U.S. team has Evan Workin (Skip), Rachel Workin (Vice-skip), Jordan Brown and Christina Lammers.
This is the fourth edition of the event, with Scotland as defending champions, defeating Canada, 8-5, to win last year, with the Czech Republic third. Russia and Sweden went 1-2 in 2016 and Norway won the inaugural tournament, 5-3, over Sweden in 2015.