LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — Pressed into a three-man setup after the withdrawal of vice Mark Nichols, the Wild Card One team skipped by Brad Gushue showed Saturday that it can play just as well short-handed as even strength.
Gushue made a game-winning angle-runback to score three points for a 9-7 victory over Saskatchewan’s Colton Flasch in the 3-4 Page playoff game at the Tim Hortons Brier.
With Nichols in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 a day earlier, his teammates used their mixed doubles skills to help adjust their sweeping routines and communication.
It paid off with a strong performance in a game that featured tremendous shotmaking from both sides.
“(It’s) like playing a hockey game killing a penalty for 60 minutes,” Gushue said. “It is that big a difference in my opinion.”
The 2022 Olympic bronze medallists advanced to the semifinal with the win. Alberta’s Kevin Koe was scheduled to play Canada’s Brendan Bottcher in the 1-2 Page playoff game Saturday night at the Enmax Centre.
The 1-2 winner advances to the final Sunday night. The loser plays Gushue earlier in the day for the other berth.
After an opening blank, Gushue made a soft raise takeout for a pair to open the scoring. Second Brett Gallant and lead Geoff Walker raised their fists in the air to salute the skip at the other end of the ice.
Nichols chimed in on Twitter by posting three flame emojis.
Flasch also showed his big-game mettle in front of a near-capacity crowd. He made a hit for two in the third end and forced Gushue to find a tight port against three for a single in the fourth.
The Saskatchewan skip made an in-off for a pair to take a 4-3 lead into the mid-game break.
In the sixth end, Gallant made a hit-and-roll that just stuck around the edge of the 12-foot ring to set up a Gushue deuce. Flasch settled for one in the seventh and a Gushue in-off in the eighth end gave him a 6-5 lead.
Flasch made a soft tap for two in the ninth end but vice Catlin Schneider missed a double takeout in the 10th end. Flasch was still able to draw around a centre guard to the top of the four-foot ring to put the pressure on.
Gushue went with an angle-runback as it was the only option that could give him multiple points. He said he threw his angle-runback a little tight but Gallant held it.
“I was just glad it was over to be honest,” Gushue said. “It’s really hard playing with three players. It’s mentally exhausting. Everybody is trying to do probably even more than you need to do. That was a grind.”
A team that started out as a favourite after an 8-0 round-robin run quickly became an underdog when Nichols went down. The odds are against the three-time Brier champions but they’ll still be tough to bet against.
“There’s no quit in our team,” Gushue said. “I think we’ve proven that over the last eight or 10 years we’ve been together. Certainly this afternoon was no exception. I’m super proud of what we did.”
The Wild Card One entry did not have an alternate player at the Brier. Jeff Thomas served as a fifth at Canada’s Olympic trials last fall and moved into a coaching role for the Gushue rink at the Beijing Games.
However, he wasn’t available this week since he was coaching the Newfoundland and Labrador team skipped by Nathan Young. Gallant said the turnaround from the Games to the Brier was too tight to bring a new alternate on board.
“It’s a bit of a roll of the dice obviously,” Gallant said.
The loss eliminated Flasch, who played three games a day earlier – posting knockout wins over Wild Card Two’s Matt Dunstone (in a tiebreaker) and Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs – and did well in his first Brier as a skip.
“It just shows that we belong,” said Flasch, who won world silver in 2019 as a second for Koe. “We’re a great team and everyone knows it now.”
The Brier winner will represent Canada at the April 2-10 world men’s curling championship in Las Vegas.
Gushue, Northern Ontario third Marc Kennedy, Saskatchewan second Kevin Marsh and Canada lead Karrick Martin were named first-team all-stars Saturday night. Koe, Nichols, Alberta second John Morris and teammate Ben Hebert took the second-team honours.
Kerri Einarson won her third straight Scotties Tournament of Hearts title last month in Thunder Bay, Ont. She will wear the Maple Leaf at the March 19-27 women’s world curling championship in Prince George, B.C.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2022.
Follow @GregoryStrongCP on Twitter.
