Swift Current's Shaun Meachem, Kelly Schafer and Chris and Teejay Haichert finished round-robin play at the World Mixed Curling Championship with an unbeaten record after an 8-5 win over New Zealand on Thursday.
Canada opened with a deuce in the first end and after forcing New Zealand to one in the second, the Meachem rink scored two more in the third end to go up 4-1.
Brett Sargon and New Zealand picked up a deuce of their own in the fourth end to cut their deficit to 4-3 at the break, and after forcing Canada to a single in the fifth, they tied the game at 5-5 with two in the sixth end.
Canada would score three in the seventh end and run New Zealand out of stones in the eighth to wrap up a round-robin record of 7-0.
Meachem and company finished first in Group A and advances to the round of 16 where they will face the Netherlands at 6:00 a.m. CST on Friday in an elimination game, with the winner advancing to the quarter-finals later in the day against the winner of the game between Japan and Kazakhstan, also at 6:00 a.m.
The playoff games will be streamed live on The Curling Channel with the semi-finals and medal games set for Saturday.