Team Brad Gushue will not be competing in next week’s Grand Slam event in the United States, but don’t think for a moment this has anything to do with fallout from the Canada/USA trade war.

When questioned by The Curling News, Gushue said “The main reason was timing. We wanted to have a training camp that week instead of competing.

“The fact (the Slam) is far away, difficult for us to get to, and expensive played a role as well. But we are going to Switzerland the week before, so those weren’t deciding factors.

“The main reason is we felt (the Slam) was too close to the (Olympic) Trials.”

The KIOTI GSOC Tahoe starts Tuesday in Lake Tahoe, Nevada and is the first Slam event to ever be hosted outside of Canada.

Team Gushue is now in Switzerland, with the Swiss Cup starting in Basel on Friday morning.

The squad trained on the ice on Thursday evening.

Team Gushue had the Swiss Cup penciled into their season schedule as soon as it was released back in September.

Still, it’s jarring for Canadian curling fans to see Gushue, Mark Nichols, Brendan Bottcher and Geoff Walker deliberately miss a Grand Slam event.

(We aren’t sure of the last one they missed.)

Thanks to tensions – including threats – that began nearly a year ago, relations between the United States and neighbouring Canada are at an all-time low.

Amid widespread reports of delays and even the detention of Canadians at the U.S. border, the Canadian government has issued not one but two travel advisories regarding the United States in the past five months, the most recent one dropping on Oct. 28.

A recent CNN poll of Americans revealed a net popularity rating of +49 percentage points for Canada, and a –10 in percentage points for U.S. president Donald Trump.

“(That) wasn’t a factor,” said Gushue.

“If the event was in the middle of Saskatchewan, we still would have not played. It’s all timing.”

Indeed, a full slate of nations – including Canada’s Rachel Homan and Brad Jacobs – competed at the last-ever Pan Continental Championships in Virginia, Minn. last week, and there are no other omissions from the Slam field in Tahoe.

Curlers and curling fans seem to bond regardless of politics. Although there were fears of Canadian boos for the U.S. anthem last March, the Americans were met with only cheers at the world men’s championship.

Gushue’s place in the Slam draw seems to have been filled by a celebrity team featuring retired NFL All-Pro (and The Curling Group backer) Jared Allen, his former teammate and U.S. Olympic curler Jason Smith and retired curling stars John Morris and Wayne Middaugh.

Team Gushue will battle Germany’s Andy Kapp in their first match at Basel.

Kapp has reunited most of his classic squad for the weekend, an outfit which captured five world championship medals and double European gold in a career spanning two decades.  

“We start our second career,” joked Kapp front-ender Holger Höhne. “Our goal is the Grand Slam 2027.”

Team Gushue has long enjoyed the Swiss Cup; in six total appearances the squad has captured the title five times, including their last visit in 2017.