Best Sleep Since Christmas

Brad Gushue’s Wild Card squad is continuing to outperform the cautions expectations they set for themselves in their post-Olympics Brier, as a comfortable Tuesday night win over Mike McEwen’s Team Manitoba improved their undefeated record to 5-0.

“The last couple nights I've had the best sleep I’ve had since Christmas, so that’s been a positive as far as feeling rested,” said Gushue. “I think the concern coming in was kind of that intensity and that sharpness. I don’t think we’re quite there with the intensity.

“We’ve had some moments of sharpness over the last few games, where probably being a little cooler and not as intense has probably played to our benefit, but we’ve got another level to get to.”

Gushue’s team opened with hammer on Tuesday evening, and the teams traded deuces back and force through each of the first five ends, leaving Gushue with a 6-4 lead going into the break.

In the sixth end, the pattern was broken. With four Gushue stones in the rings—three of them in scoring position—McEwen placed one on top of the button leaving Gushue sitting one. The three-time Brier champion responded by placing a high guard to take away an angle raise. McEwen tried a runback to score at least one, but missed, leaving the Gushue counter in place for a steal. That moved Gushue into a 7-4 lead.

The Newfoundlanders forced the Manitobans to a single in the seventh end, and then scored another deuce in the eighth, taking a 9-5 lead into the ninth end.

With McEwen’s path to victory narrowing, Gushue made a double takeout on his first skip stone, cutting down the potential for a big end. McEwen was forced to a single in the ninth and shook hands.

“Well, you might not be throwing them pretty, but you’re making them,” said Brett Gallant to his skip, after Gushue’s double takeout.

Gushue said that keeping things light is how his team is staying mentally rested.

“The concern now is as you get in the second half of the week is potentially fatigue—mental fatigue more than physical fatigue,” said Gushue. “Once the game is done, we pretty well just play around and try and recharge the batteries.”

Manitoba has dropped to 3-2 as the middle pack in Pool B continues to tighten.

Meanwhile, Paul Flemming’s Team Nova Scotia took an 11-7 loss at the hands of Brent Pierce’s Team BC. It was a wild affair as Pierce scored a four to move into a 6-1 lead, only for Flemming to respond with a quad of his own in the very next end.

Flemming eventually drew even with Pierce but never moved into the lead. With his comeback halted, Flemming has also dropped to 3-2 after a strong start to the tournament.

Other Pool B games on Tuesday evening saw Jason Gunnlaugson’s Wild Card entry score a 6-3 win over Jamie Koe’s Northwest Territories, and Brad Jacob’s Northern Ontario wallop Peter Mackey’s Nunavut 12-2.

While Gushue and the one-loss Jacobs team move closer to securing playoff berths, the battle for the final playoff spot in Pool B currently sees three teams sitting at two losses, with another two three-loss teams on their heels.

Over in Pool A, the top four teams all won their games against the single-win teams on Tuesday afternoon, further cementing them as the four squads vying for the three playoff spots in that pool.

Wednesday morning’s tilt between Brendan Bottcher’s Team Canada and Matt Dunstone’s Team Wild Card 3 pits the only two remaining undefeated teams against each other. The game is a rematch of last year’s Brier semifinal in which Bottcher defeated Dunstone 6-5 before going on to topple Kevin Koe in the final.