Shawn Rojeski of the United States, right, gives team skip Pete Fenson a high five after the Americans won the bronze medal in men’s curling by beating Great Britain 8-6.

PINEROLO, Italy — Two countries, two medals, two Olympic curling slumps over.

Canada, a 29-time world champion and the world's No. 1 curling power, won its first gold medal Friday. The United States won bronze — happy to win any medal at all.

"The drought's finally over," said Ed Lukowich, a former world champion brought in from Canada to help coach the U.S. national teams. "Bronze, for the U.S., is like winning the gold."

Canada took the championship with a stunning six points in the sixth end, and Finland was forced to go through the motions until they were allowed to concede after eight. The American medal — its first for Olympic curling — came down to the last rock.

Skip Pete Fenson bent his last shot into the target area to seal the victory over Britain, giving the United States an 8-6 victory and its first curling medal in a major men's competition since 1978. Only then did the usually stone-faced Fenson break into a grin and raise his broom in victory.

"Our job's done here," he said after winning 8-6. "It's always nice to come to a world event and perform well. It adds to the credibility for us. ... Hopefully it will have a great impact in the States."

A gentlemanly sport with etiquette about when and how to celebrate, the Olympic tournament has witnessed more than the usual amount of fist-pumping, cheerleading and even a thrown broom. But Fenson, a Minnesota pizzeria owner who was sarcastically dubbed "Hollywood" by his teammates, has remained stoic in steering the U.S. team, rarely showing as much as a smile.

"On the ice, he's nerves of steel," American team member Joe Polo said. "He has fun out there, but he just likes to stay as focused as he can."

The object of Fenson's focus was an international medal slump that, the U.S. curlers said, limited the sport's appeal in their homeland. In addition to two shutouts since the sport was promoted to full Olympic status in 1998, the American men had not medaled at the world championships in almost three decades.

While the Olympic medal raises the team's profile for non-curlers back home — and in the United States, that's pretty much everybody — the Americans say they actually had their coming out party at last year's worlds. Though they didn't medal, they finished in a six-way tie for first place before losing a tiebreaker that kept them out of the semifinals.

"We didn't surprise anybody out there," U.S. lead John Shuster said, pointing to the Olympic ice. "That's for sure."

But even their own national governing body set a lower bar for the men, making their goal a medal of any sort. For the U.S. women, who won the worlds in 2003 and came in second last year, anything less than gold was officially dubbed a disappointment.

"Everybody was not expecting us to do well here," U.S. third Shawn Rojeski said. "But we were pretty confident coming in that we could be contenders. We were definitely OK with coming in here and not being the No. 1 favorites."

When they get their medals on Saturday, the Americans will share the podium with Canada and Finland, two more traditional curling powers. Britain was shut out of a medal one Olympiad after Rhona Martin threw the "Stone of Destiny" in Salt Lake City and brought the gold medal back to Scotland, curling's birthplace.

"It's massively disappointing," British skip David Murdoch said.

The victory was especially emotional for Rojeski; it was the second anniversary of his mother's death. He carried a picture of his mother, Bonnie, with him throughout the tournament.

"I knew it was going to be an extremely difficult day for me today," he said. "This team is extremely satisfied with the way they played today — and for myself, it's that much of a better moment, for sure."