You know that feeling when you studied a long time for a test and actually felt really good while taking it, only to get a 60 per cent mark back?

Well, that’s what the women’s world championship in Calgary has been like through the first three days. 

Everything you would expect to happen in terms of results hasn’t — except for Team Canada, who beat Denmark 9-6 on Monday to improve to 4-0 and are now the last undefeated team, with Turkey losing to Switzerland in the night draw. 

But, hey, that makes for a more entertaining tournament, right?

Who would’ve thought the world No. 9-ranked team Satsuki Fujisawa from Japan would get throttled 9-4 by the No. 37-ranked team Dilşat Yıldız from Turkey? For sure, Fujisawa is super aggressive, and it can sometimes get her in trouble, but not by that much. 

We also had Sweden’s Team Isabella Wrana lose 9-7 to Norway’s Team Torild Bjornstad in what was also a massive upset on Monday. It was Bjornstad’s first win of the competition. 

Needless to say, it was a wild day, so here are some takeaways.

Canada gets pushed for the first time

It’s a real shame that Denmark’s second Katrine Schmidt felt under the weather at the fifth-end break and needed to leave the game. Had she played the second half, she might have helped hand Canada’s Team Kerri Einarson her first loss of the bonspiel.

It’s not that Canada didn’t deserve the win; they played great. In fact, as a team, they registered their second-straight 90 per cent or better game. This match also proved that, right now, as a collective group, the Canadian rink has the best understanding of how the ice is working with each path, depending on the weight/shot, as their rock placement was great once again.

However, given how Denmark’s skip Madeleine Dupont, and third Mathilde Halse, played, it felt like they deserved a better outcome. 

It started in the first end when Dupont made Einarson’s shot at a deuce incredibly difficult with a nice hit and roll to lay buried. The only way Einarson would get her two was by chasing Denmark’s stone with a soft-weight hit so she could get enough curl, which she made.

From there, even though Canada outplayed Denmark over the course of the game, Halse was making a difference. Halse outcurled Val Sweeting 90 to 85 per cent and was doing a better job of setting up her skip for success. 

Dupont took advantage and delivered in crucial spots for Denmark to either score or force Canada to take a single. But in the 10th end, with the game tied 6-6, you could tell the now three-person Danish team that was holding it together for the last four ends just ran out of gas and couldn’t keep up with how Canada was shooting. 

Switzerland continues to surge 

Even though it may not be the same name on the back of Switzerland’s jackets at this year’s world championship, it doesn’t mean they aren’t a force to be reckoned with. 

The super young team of Xenia Schwaller, Selina Gafner, Fabienne Rieder and Selina Rychiger dropped their opening match of the tournament to Japan 6-3 but have looked stellar ever since. 

It continued Monday as they picked up wins over Scotland and Turkey to improve their record to 4-1, good for second in the table. 

The most impressive thing about this team, whose average age is 22.5, is how calm they are on the ice. No situation seems stressful for them, even when it may be.

They do a great job as a team of communicating and believing in each other while mentally staying in the moment to make every shot. Schwaller also has a great understanding of how to call the game, which she may have gotten from her cousin Yannick Schwaller, who is also a skip, and seems to be thinking two shots ahead. 

If the Swiss continue trending in this direction, they will be hard to beat come playoff time. 

A lot of teams are bunched up

Through three full days, the standings look like a complete mess.

There have been a bunch of teams that win in commanding fashion and look like they’ve found something, only to lose to a team you wouldn’t expect right after. 

As a result, only three teams have started to pull away from the pack with Canada (4-0), Switzerland and Turkey (each 4-1), but even still, they could find themselves in the middle of the mess with a two-loss day.

Six teams are currently working with two or three losses, with a ton of games still left against each other.

Usually by now, we’d see teams trending upward or downward as they’ve figured out the ice and start rounding into form. Not in this event, though. Trying to foresee who will actually make the playoffs based on the performances so far is nearly impossible.