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EspañolBrad Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert will be rolling into Newfoundland for the Brier this week on a real high thanks to their incredible Olympic gold-medal performance, but the skipper from Sault Ste. Marie and his Alberta-based team will have some major competition when it comes to who will be the talk of the town in St. John’s.
Much of the hype heading into the national championship is squarely focused on hometown skip, Brad Gushue, since this is his swan song and it’s poetically happening on the very Rock he grew up on. The 45-year-old Gushue is retiring at the end of this season and will attempt to cap off his incomparable career with a record-setting seventh Brier.
Gushue’s long-time third, Mark Nichols, and lead, Geoff Walker, are also each going after an incredible seventh national championship. But Gushue’s Team Newfoundland, which includes Brendan Bottcher at third, will be in tough: Six teams in the 2026 Montana’s Brier field sit higher in the world rankings.
With competition opening Friday night — and the final set for Sunday, March 8 — let’s take a look at the major storylines and questions as this 18-team field fights for the right to represent Canada at world championships next month in Utah.
Can Gushue do it again?
The skip was 36 years old and competing in his 14th Brier when he won it for the first time in 2017, right at home at the Mile One Centre in downtown St. John’s (where the 2026 edition is also being played, though it’s now known as Mary Brown’s Centre).
It seems crazy now to think that the Brier was at one time elusive for Gushue, who led Canada to Olympic gold in Turin 11 years before he captured his first national title. Gushue is now the winningest Brier skip in history, and only Walker, Nichols and Randy Ferbey can match his six Tankard titles.
This will be an emotionally charged event for Gushue. His team is the crowd favourite wherever they go in Canada, and that’ll be amplified in St. John’s, where a highway, sports complex and a few streets are named for the skip.
It’s been 20 years since Gushue won Olympic gold. He also hasn’t won a major championship since he took home his 15th Grand Slam title in April of 2024, and his last two attempts to earn a chance to represent Canada have ended in tears: At Olympic Trials last November, Gushue missed the playoffs for the first time at the event, and in the 2025 Brier semifinal, against Team Jacobs, Gushue’s last shot produced one of the biggest misses of his career.
“Hugely disappointed, and feel like I’m going to be apologizing to my teammates for quite some time after that,” Gushue said, when his 2025 Brier was over.
No doubt he’s hoping this 2026 version ends much better.
Gushue is in Pool A, which is set up for a classic Battle of the Brads showdown to close out round-robin play on Thursday, March 5.
It’d sure be pure poetry for Gushue to go on a run and cap off his career with a record-setting seventh Brier, at home, and earn one last chance to represent Canada.
No matter what happens, though, the skipper’s career has been incomparable.
Jacobs and Team Canada riding high
Jacobs and Co. come into St. John’s on four days of rest (if you include commuting from Italy) after upsetting world No. 1 Bruce Mouat and Team Great Britain in the gold-medal final in Milan. What a run! What a win!
Jacobs, 38, is the first men’s skipper to ever win two Olympic gold medals, earning his first back in 2014.
So, Team Canada hasn’t had a lot of time to recover from an emotional roller-coaster of an event, which saw them go the distance and weather some major controversy. While playing against Sweden early in the round robin, Kennedy was accused of cheating — for a double-touch while throwing. After the Canadian third responded explosively on the ice, he became a popular meme at the Olympics, his left index finger (the cause of all that controversy) attracting global attention.
Though they weathered the storm and won, time will tell whether Team Jacobs has enough left in the tank to win back-to-back Briers and earn yet another chance to represent the country on a big stage.
For the team that just brought home Olympic gold in curling, that would be a real cherry on top.
Can Dunstone break through?
The skipper known as “The Sheriff” has come oh-so-close to representing Canada at the senior level, coming within a single win on two occasions.
At last year’s Brier, Dunstone lost in the final to Jacobs. Two years before that, he dropped the national championship final to Gushue. And this past November, Dunstone cracked the final of Canada’s Olympic Trials, but lost the best-of-three (in two games) to Jacobs.
The exits have all been emotional, leaving Dunstone in tears.
His team was Canada’s top-ranked prior to Olympic Trials. Jacobs and Co. have since taken over that distinction, but Dunstone won his second Grand Slam event earlier this year and he and third Colton Lott and the Brush Brothers, E.J. and Ryan Harnden, are ranked fifth in the world and second in the country.
With a tired Team Jacobs in this field, it could be Dunstone’s year to get that monkey off his back and earn a chance to wear the maple leaf on an international stage.
Buckle up for a wild free agency
Stay tuned for shakeups and breakups in the curling world, because it’s that time of year — and the changes to teams are sure to be significant and plentiful since the Winter Olympics just wrapped up.
In addition to Gushue, E.J. Harnden has announced he’s retiring. Kennedy and Hebert have both said they’re considering doing the same. And all that aside, free agency starts after national championships, with teams scrambling to put together all-star foursomes, gearing up towards the next Olympic Trials. A lot of dominoes will fall, and there are a lot of questions in the air.
If Kennedy and Hebert retire, it will leave Jacobs and Gallant looking for teammates, should they decide to stay together. If they don’t, talk about a pair of coveted free agents.
Joining them are Gushue’s teammates Nichols, Bottcher and Walker, who will all be looking for a new skip and/or team, unless any of them choose to retire. Bottcher, who skipped Alberta to the 2021 Brier title, could well return to the skip position after converting to third to play alongside Gushue.
In short, even after Tankard is won, expect lots of action.
