Sweden's Peja Lindholm moved into a tie for second place at the 2007 Ford World Men's Curling Championship

Lindholm, a three-time world champion, defeated Germany's Andy Kapp 7-5 in a battle of playoff contenders. The Germans dropped into the tie with Sweden at 4-2.

Canada's Glenn Howard maintained his tight grip of first place with a 12-5 defeat of France's Thomas Dufour. The Canadians climbed to 6-0 while France dropped to 2-3.

Lindholm is skipping a new team for the first time in two decades. His longtime teammates retired after a disappointing 2006 Olympics in Turin, and Lindholm's new squad features transplanted Scotsman James Dryburgh at third. Dryburgh, a two-time world junior champion for Scotland, has lived in Sweden for seven years.

Dryburgh defeated his Scottish mates, skipped by Warwick Smith, on Monday night and declared his new allegiance with resolve.

"I'm Swedish, and that's the end of it," said Dryburgh. "I'm married to a Swedish girl, I'm living there for the rest of my life, I speak Swedish and I'm never going back to Scotland.

"There comes a time when you make life decisions like that, and I've made mine."

Lindholm grabbed a huge three-ender in the sixth frame against Germany, and promptly planted a kiss on Dryburgh.

"James read the ice perfect today," said Lindholm. "He made his shots, he made me look good."

After the match against Scotland, the feisty Lindholm gathered his teammates at centre ice and engaged them in a lively lecture. The Scots had made a stirring comeback only to be shot down in the 10th and final end.

"I told them that was an important game, with lots of benefits for us," said Lindholm. "I told them this game will help us a lot (at the Olympics) in 2010. We played 100 per cent the last end.

"That showed a lot of balls from our team."

Olympic points are a critical part of the world championships, with nations receiving qualifying points over the next three worlds for the eventual nine spots available at Vancouver 2010.

The 10th spot goes to host nation Canada, and with Howard's team a virtual shoe-in for the playoffs, a great showing in Edmonton just might carry a nation straight through to a berth three years from now.

"It's very, very important to every country to get an Olympic spot," said Finnish skip Markku Uusipaavalniemi.  "You get the media attention back home, and the chance to grow the sport."

Uusipaavalniemi is hoping his longtime third Wille Makela will come out of retirement in time for Vancouver 2010. Makela already returned to the sport just prior to the Turin Olympics and helped Uusipaavalniemi win the Olympic silver medal.

"I hope (he comes back) next year," said the skip known as M-15. "I really hope to be curling in Vancouver and I hope Wille will be too."

Finland showed its prowess in defeating the wobbling Scots by 6-1 count. Now mired at 2-4, Scotland are in dire straits.

"Terrible," said skip Warwick Smith, who was a member of last year's world championship team skipped by David Murdoch.

"I'm annoyed. We've got to regroup and find out what we're doing wrong."

Scotland's second is David Smith, the 1991 world champion skip.

"We just need to win some games," said Smith. "We gotta hope for dog eat dog."

Kapp, who meets Switzerland's Ralph Stoeckli in Tuesday night action, said he is not paying attention to the race for Olympic points.

"We'll look at the end - it's the middle of the week and we don't look at the Olympic points," said Kapp.

Canada's Howard recalled his previous game against France, 20 years ago at the 1987 world championships in Vancouver.

Teamed with his brother Russ Howard at skip, Canada lost to France's Jean-Francois Orset in the very first game, before eventually winning the world championship.

"It's not so much revenge, but it was a huge loss," Howard recalled. "I remember they bawled, they we're crying, they were so happy," Howard said.

"Of course, I wanted to bawl too. It was my first world championship and we'd just lost our opening game."

Howard also won the 1993 world title, again with his brother at skip position. Howard, unsurprisingly, likes the way his team is performing in Edmonton.

"I think as a foursome this is the best we've ever played," said Howard. "The peaks and valleys have been few and far between."

"We've struggled to stay focused at times," said Canadian third Richard Hart, an Olympic silver medallist for Canada's Mike Harris in 1998. "The last few games have been difficult that way, to be honest with you.

"We have a few tough games coming up, starting with Norway, so that should help us getting closer to the playoffs."