Gushue Winning Battle of The Brads

Team Gushue once again had the number of Team Jacobs on Sunday evening as the bronze medalists from Beijing came out on top in their draw six matchup at the Brier.

This was the first meeting between the two teams since Gushue defeated Jacobs twice at the Canadian Olympic Trials in November, both in the round robin and the championship final. The Newfoundlanders have now won six of the last eight head-to-head matchups, dating back to the 2020 Brier in Kingston.

The game also saw Marc Kennedy return to his traditional role as a rival of Team Gushue, after serving as the squad’s alternate in Beijing.

Despite a textbook start to the game for Jacobs—forcing Gushue to a single in the second end, then scoring a deuce in the third to take control—he quickly found himself in trouble, as his early lead shifted to a four-point deficit.

“It was a little different,” said Gushue. “They took a couple opportunities to be aggressive on us, where generally it’s a little more calculating game between the two teams.”

In the fourth end, playing without hammer, Jacobs put up two centre guards in an attempt to steal. The move would backfire.

“(I was) a little surprised in the fourth end that we had a bunch of rocks in play,” said Gushue. “Fortunately we won the battle of angles.”

With a pile of his own yellow stones growing in the house throughout the end, Gushue made an in-off takeout on his first stone to lie four. Jacobs was able to make two of those stones go away on his last shot—narrowly clearing his own guard—leaving Gushue the chance to draw for three. Needing only a bite of the paint, Gushue made the draw for a 4-2 lead.

The 2006 Olympic champion forced the 2014 Olympic winner to a single in the fifth end, and then had another draw for three in the sixth end, and moved ahead 7-3.

Gushue maintained the upper hand as the teams traded singles in the seventh and eighth.

“That's as good an eight ends as we played, probably all year, to be quite honest,” said Gushue. “We were pretty solid, making some difficult shots and making them pretty well perfectly.”

But he felt some pressure in the final two ends of the match, explaining that “we were leaking some oil in nine and 10.”

A flash by Mark Nichols opened the door for the Northern Ontarians to score two in the ninth, closing the gap to 8-6.

In the 10th end, Jacobs made Gushue face two stones on his final shot, but Gushue easily removed one for an 8-7 victory.

Gushue said the tightening of the score in the final two ends did not come from his team letting up.

“There’s no sense of relaxation out there, because you know they’re going to do what they did in the ninth end and throw eight shots together on you,” he said. “They’re not going to quit and they’re going to make a bunch of shots.”

The victory moves Gushue’s Wild Card entry to 3-0, and puts them in a strong position to be first in their pool. If Gushue’s team ends up with the same win-loss record as Jacobs at the end of the week, their victory in this game would leave them in first place, giving them the bye through the first round of the playoffs.

In other draw 6 matchups, Brent Pierce’s Team BC beat Jamie Koe’s Northwest Territories 7-3, and Paul Flemming’s Nova Scotia defeated Peter Mackey’s Nunavut 8-4.

Jason Gunnlaugson’s Wild Card picked-up a 9-7 win over Quebec’s Mike Fournier. Quebec fourth Felix Asselin was lying one on his final shot—enough to force an extra end—but in attempting to score two for the win, Asselin moved his own shot stone from scoring position, handing the Manitobans the victory.

Earlier on Sunday, James Grattan’s Team New Brunswick bounced back from their loss to Darren Moulding’s former teammates with a 9-4 win over Nathan Young’s Team Newfoundland and Labrador.

During post-game interviews, Grattan said his team had been prepared they would need to refocus after the match against Team Canada.

“It was definitely something we’ve talked a lot about,” he said. “Just to kind of get that game over with last night. Have lots of intensity. We were hoping that we weren’t going use it all up last night and have nothing left for today. So I thought we did a really good job coming up there with some fire.”

The win moves New Brunswick to 1-2 and they prepare to play Colton Flasch’s Saskatchewan (1-1) on Monday morning.