PanCon Gushue Final Part II

St. John’s curling royalty will get a chance to defend their Pan Continental Curling Championship gold in Kelowna, B.C.

Brad Gushue and his teammates overcame a tight matchup with a big three-ender in the ninth end to defeat USA’s Andrew Stopera 8-3 in the semifinal draw of the Pan Continental Championship.

Last year, Gushue welcomed new teammate E.J. Harnden to the squad by scoring gold in Calgary, defeating Korea’s Jeong Byeong-jin in the final.

The Canadians will now face Korea’s Jongduk Park on Saturday. The Koreans scored a big end of their own in their semifinal against Japan’s Riku Yanagisawa, grabbing three in the eighth and then a winning point coming home for the 8-7 victory.

Stopera, calling the game for fourth shooter Korey Dropkin, will face Japan for the bronze medals.

Gushue made a game saver in the eighth end, blasting two American stones out of the rings and rolling across the house to sit near-frozen on another American counter.

The U.S. was forced to a single, which set the table for Canada’s three-count.

The Canadians stole another pair in the final end as USA pulled out all the stops in an attempt to tie the match.

The men’s championship final goes at 3:00 p.m. Pacific time on Friday afternoon.

Earlier Friday, Kerri Einarson’s Team Canada lost their semifinal against Korea’s Eunji Gim and will play for bronze at 2:00 p.m. PT.

The women’s championship final between Korea and Japan starts at 10:00 a.m. local time on Saturday.