Scotland has the last word

LOWELL -- They'll be dancing in the streets of Glasgow tonight. Scotland, the country that invented curling, finally beat archrival Canada, 7-4, yesterday at Tsongas Arena to win the world championship for just the fourth time in 47 years.

Scotland not only had lost to Canada in Friday's semifinal round by a wide margin (8-2), it had been trounced by the Canadians in last year's world championship final (11-4) as well. The Scots and 27-year-old skip David Murdoch were not going to let another chance get away.

As so often happens in curling's top levels, a 10-end game came down to one critical shot. Yesterday, it came midway through the ninth end, when Canada finally blinked.

Skip Jean-Michel Menard faced a house with Scotland laying a point. But rather than lay his own rock in, Menard blasted both stones out of the house, allowing Scotland -- which was wielding the hammer (last shot) -- to put up a 2-point score for a 6-4 lead and make it difficult for Canada to answer with a 2-pointer in the final frame.

Throwing the hammer in the 10th, Menard tried a very tricky placement that would have knocked out Scotland and left two Canada stones in scoring position to possibly force extra ends. Instead, his go-for-broke shot turned into the equivalent of an empty-net goal for Scotland, providing the 7-4 final score.

Since this event began in 1959 as the Scotch Cup, Canada has won the title 29 times. This was Scotland's first world championship since 1999.

Given his team's success throughout the tournament (8-3 in round-robin play) and recent Olympic gold medal in Turin, it was a tough loss for Menard.

''Right now I'm disappointed," he said. ''But if someone told me early in the year we'd be in the match for the overall world championship, I'd have been pleased. More than happy. I'm sure I'll feel we did an overall good job here."

''This team is just incredible," said an elated Murdoch after the closing ceremony, during which all teams paraded their flags before the estimated 3,000 fans in attendance. ''It's been a long time, but it was the kind of game where we just had to be patient. That ninth end was the crucial one with Menard's [shot]."

Among the spectators were members of the United States team, which finished fourth with a 7-4 record after losing to Norway Friday.

''We haven't put our finger on what went wrong," said US skip Pete Fenson, who delivered a bronze in Turin, the Americans' first medal in Olympic competition. ''We went well for three-quarters of the [tournament], then after that close game with Australia [a 5-4 loss last Wednesday], we never were the same. Maybe it was the speed of the ice or the curl, whatever, we just weren't real sharp at the end."

The US leaves Wednesday for Calgary for their next tournament and then will sit down to figure out the future of the team.

Coach Bob Fenson, father of the skip, agreed that the Americans' tailspin began with the loss to ninth-place Australia.

''We started off not bad," he said, ''but after that loss, when they stole in the last end, it just seems we didn't play well after that. I don't know, we were tired, and had a long season with the Olympics and national trials. That's not an excuse. We just weren't as sharp as we'd like to be."