Brad Gushue’s Last Curling Dance

On September 17, 2025, warm air moved across the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The day saw a mixture of cloud and sun, with temperatures reaching almost 19°C and winds gusting to 40km/h by late afternoon. A typical summer day on The Rock.

It was also the day six-time Brier winner, Olympic and world champion Brad Gushue announced his pending retirement. The 2025-26 season would be his last as a competitive curler.

Over a virtual press conference, Brad suggested he had spent time on this decision and wanted to make it public prior to the season, to remove any speculation ahead of his team’s run at the Olympic Trials and a hometown Brier in St. John’s. Making the choice when he did could help focus his efforts, knowing this would be his last dance.

“My hope is by sharing it with everybody, it’s going to take a burden off me,” he said. “And to be honest, waking up this morning now with everybody knowing, I do feel better. So I’ll find the motivation. I know it’s the last year. 

“I know I have that drive and I’m more excited today than I was yesterday about the season.”

A reasonable explanation for announcing in September, but it’s possible Gushue recalled Jennifer Jones revealing her plans just days before the start of the 2024 Scotties. Jen missed out on a booty of parting gifts she could have received from a full season’s farewell tour on the bonspiel circuit.

Thirteen years ago, men’s curling in Canada was at a crossroads. The big four of Jeff Stoughton, Glenn Howard, Randy Ferbey and Kevin Martin reached the end of their reign at the top. They had combined to win 12 of the 19 Briers played since the introduction of the Free Guard Zone in 1994. It had been 13 years since one of these skips had failed to appear in the Brier final (Greg McAulay defeated Russ Howard, without his brother Glenn, in 2000). 

Ahead of the 2013 Brier in Edmonton, the next generation of dominance for men’s curling in Canada was yet to arrive.

In 2010, at 34 years of age, Kevin Koe defeated Glenn Howard at the Brier in Halifax. He added a world championship with his team from Alberta and a new Kevin entered the conversation for “who’s next.” 

Koe dispatched both Brads, Gushue in the 3 vs 4 Page game and Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. in the semifinal on his way to victory.

Jacobs returned to the Brier the following year, and the one after, and in 2013 – with Manitoba-born Ryan Fry at third – Jacobs won the Brier in Edmonton, passing Gushue, Howard and Stoughton on the final weekend. A year later, Jacobs added an Olympic gold medal to his trophy case and suddenly the Brad from Northern Ontario, not the Brad from Newfoundland and Labrador, was sitting beside Kevin Koe at the table of the next generation of great Canadian curlers.

Which left everyone asking: where was Brad Gushue? 

Gushue won the 2001 world junior men’s championship and made his first Brier appearance in 2003. He reached the final of the Player’s Championship in the spring of 2005 and less than a year later won the biggest bonspiel in history, and brought home an Olympic gold medal. 

Townies and Baymen alike celebrated the Olympic win for Canada but also for Newfoundland and Labrador. Schools were closed across the province to watch Brad win gold in Italy. They named a street after him. He was only 25 years old.

Athletes are sometimes asked by media to reflect on a recent victory and what it means to their legacy. The response is usually “I’m working towards the next game/event/season and this (victory) is something to look back on when my career is over.”

After winning in Pinerolo, Brad Gushue’s legacy was written just as it was beginning. The next step was a Brier and world championship.

A close loss to Glenn Howard in the 2007 Brier had skeptics joining his followers in agreement that it was only a matter of time before the greatest curler to slide out of St. John’s would be on top of the world. And then… the years passed.

The weight of expectations can be heavy. 

The Grand Slam performances were disappointing. Ahead of the 2013-14 season, Brad had just one victory at the National in 2010 and either lost in the quarterfinal or failed to qualify in 22 of 28 events, following the massive medal in Torino.

The Olympic team of 2006 had Russ Howard steady the ship and guide Brad’s young squad to victory. Russ soon sailed into the broadcasting booth while Brad worked at building a team to win the Brier. 

Competition was limited in a province not known as a curling power like Alberta or Manitoba. Constructing a world championship squad in Atlantic Canada seemed a herculean task, but Nova Scotia had shown it could be done. 

Mark Dacey appeared in two consecutive Brier finals, beating Randy Ferbey in 2004, followed by Shawn Adams reaching the final against Ferbey in 2005. Colleen Jones won five Scotties between 1999 and 2004. 

If Brad could develop his team and find the right formula, multiple Brier championships would follow.

It was difficult to recruit talent, but he already had Mark Nichols at third and imports were willing to join him in his quest.

Chris Schille of Alberta joined in 2006-07 but departed after just two seasons. He was replaced by Ryan Fry who, after six seasons with Gushue, traded a flat on Jellybean Row for an apartment in the Soo and a Brier title plus Olympic gold with Jacobs.

There was a season (2010-11) when even Randy Ferbey joined the ranks of Team Gushue, filling in for the departure of Nichols who had joined Jeff Stoughton’s Winnipeg outfit. 

The results were less than mediocre. 

Fry left in 2012 and was replaced by the junior phenom from P.E.I., Brett Gallant. Alberta recruit Geoff Walker and Adam Casey (also from P.E.I.) joined a season earlier and the pieces were coming together. But the climb continued and every step must have seemed harder than the last. 

Reaching the Brier was not a challenge. Since his first appearance in 2003, Gushue only missed one due to the Olympics in 2006. Following the finals loss in 2007, each year brought more heartbreak. Despite consistently being at the top of the event standings and advancing to the playoffs, Gushue simply could not reach another final. 

2012 was his first playoff miss since 2005, and the 2013 Brier resulted in yet another loss in the 3 vs 4 Page game and the following season, Brad Gushue, the first skip to win an Olympic men’s gold medal in curling, failed to qualify for the Canadian Olympic Trials.

Gushue himself had the talent and he had been able to recruit some of the best young players in Canada. The one recruit he needed was an old one. Mark Nichols return the following season brought hope that an elusive Brier and world title was within reach. A 9-2 record in 2015 in Calgary put Gushue into the 1 vs 2 game against the “other” Brad who had finished 10-1.

Despite Jacobs starting with hammer, Gushue led 3-1 after four ends. He could only muster two more singles and scores by Jacobs of three in the fifth, one in seven and two in nine dropped Gushue to the semifinal where they lost 8-6 to eventual winner Pat Simmons, surrendering three in the final frame. 

Just as he had the past seven years, Brad watched the championship final from the stands.

The 2015-16 season began with Team Gushue demonstrating a new single sweeper technique that first turned heads and then raised tempers amongst elite players. Brad kept his composure while the chaos of Broomgate infected the season and reached three Grand Slam finals, winning one (his fourth), and Gushue entered the Brier in Ottawa as one of the favourites, yet again.

Brad finished second and met an undefeated Jacobs in the 1 vs 2 Page playoff. A steal of two in the seventh end flipped control to the team from St. John’s and after their extra end win, Gushue finally had his second trip to the Brier final game against Kevin Koe. 

And they lost. It wasn’t close.

Turin was a lifetime ago. Despite the Grand Slams and signs this was “The” team to win a Brier, they didn’t.

At that moment no one would have blamed Brad Gushue had he decided to donate his broom and shoes, pack his bags and move to a tropical island where “curling” was only a term used in hair styling.

Just one more year. Maybe?

The Brier was set to return to St. John’s in 2017 for the second time since Orest Meleschuk’s win in 1972. Isn’t this the way storybooks are supposed to end?  The frog turns into a prince and Brad Gushue finally wins the Brier. 

It was fitting that the championship and its final moments came with expectations and adversity. 

In a deep field, Gushue finished atop the standings at 9-2, tied with his 2001 Canadian Junior finals opponent Mike McEwen. Gushue won the Page game against McEwen on Friday night. 

Golfers in the lead at a major championship are often asked what they did over the course of 24 hours before they tee it up in a final round. Brad had 45 hours to ruminate on his entire career leading to this moment. All the expectations after Torino, the lineup changes, close calls and annual heartbreak that unfolded over his 13 Briers.

This time would be different. Right?

Brad’s opponent was defending champion Kevin Koe. Instead of coughing up early steals to Koe like the year before, Gushue scored an early three, forced Kevin to one and scored two in the fifth end to lead 5-1 at the break. An insurmountable cushion for teams of this calibre.

Koe scores three. Koe steals one. Brad is forced to a single in the 8th end. Suddenly, Gushue held a one point lead without hammer and two ends remained. 

After a rare miss from Koe third Marc Kennedy, Gushue calls a timeout. 

Nichols makes his shot and Kennedy misses again. Brad removes all of Koe’s stones from the rings but there is a stagger of stones above the four foot. Kevin draws behind but leaves a sliver open and Brad picks it out, holding Koe to a critical single rather than a deuce.

Teams of this calibre win tied with hammer in the last end nearly 90% of the time. Gushue surely couldn’t lose this one? The team played a clean end and Brad was left with a draw to win the Brier. 

After winning a gold medal in 2006, a Brier victory was inevitable. And then it didn’t happen. For 11 years. Now it was going to happen. The draw to the button to win the Brier is a shot Brad had thrown in practice thousands of times. This target was big, barely full eight-foot. The hometown crowd was anxious but confident. He couldn’t miss. Could he?

The easiest shots can sometimes be the hardest. A free throw, a two foot putt, a 15-yard field goal. A short wedge into the 13th green at Augusta National. When it’s at the end of the game, when you are on the precipice of a championship, something changes.

Rory McIlroy won four majors before the age of 26. He went to Augusta National every April with the belief he would win golf’s career Grand Slam. Each year he left without the green jacket. 

Eleven years after winning his last major, after numerous close calls and collapses, McIlroy finally won the Masters. He didn’t make it look easy, making inexplicable errors and becoming the first winner to record four double bogeys, including two in the final round on Sunday. He spoke afterward of resilience. Brad Gushue had resilience.

Watching Brad’s release on his final draw, you can almost see the years of struggle in the small muscles of his hand. He’s not heavy, which is good. But he is light. Nichols came out to spell an injured Geoff Walker, joining Brett Gallant to frantically sweep Brad’s stone. They made it by a few centimetres. It appeared so easy, an automatic draw to the eight foot, but like Brad’s entire curling life to that moment, it was harder than it looked.

The Brier patch usually closes on Sundays. In St. John’s it stayed open until Monday, or possibly Tuesday. That night, the Macdonald Trophy surfed across the crowd for likely the first (and for safety reasons, perhaps the last) time.

The engraved plates on all sides, with the names of Ken Watson, Howard Wood, Matt Baldwin, and the 1976 winners from Newfoundland – Jack MacDuff, Toby McDonald, Doug Hudson and Ken Templeton – floated across the room. 

We know the rest of the story.  In the blink of an eye, Brad Gushue became a two, three, four, five and eventual six-time Brier champion. In less time than it took to win one, he won more than anyone else.

Along the journey, he added Grand Slam titles (eight more after the 2016-17 season, 15 in total) and another Olympic medal, bronze, in 2022. 

He’s writing a book, with acclaimed sports author Stephen Brunt. There will be a sculpted statue. His name on a new curling facility – probably.

Gushue was frank with the press, just as he was frank with curling organizers who displeased him. 

In at least one infamous incident, he took a stand and his rival teams thanked him for standing up for the collective.

Gushue was also brave enough to chide his own fans, in his hometown, for booing one of his most famous rivals.

The last two seasons have not gone according to plan. Injuries and age have taken its toll. The ejection of second E.J. Harnden and addition of Brendan Bottcher in October of 2024 has yet to bring a championship.

In the semifinal of the 2025 Brier, Gushue had a shot to win but floated his outturn wide, sending Brad Jacobs to the finals against Matt Dunstone. 

Another loss to Jacobs, this time in Draw 14 of the Olympic Trials – and on a can’t-seem-to-miss proposition – kept Gushue from the playoffs and ended hopes for a third trip to the Olympic Winter Games.

With a world ranking of 19 (and only 14 on CTRS), Team Gushue missed the Players’ Championship for the first time since 2011.

Perhaps a return to St. John’s for the 2026 Montana’s Brier will bring back some Goo Magic and Brad can add one final accomplishment to his curling legacy. The crowd in Halifax at the Trials stayed on his side even after his elimination, cheering louder for his appearances on the jumbotron than for the teams on the ice during the playoffs. 

It will only be louder at home. 

How will his story end?