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EspañolWhen Brad Gushue announced he would retire at the end of the 2025-26 season last September, it set up a poetic 23rd and final Brier appearance.
It’s poetic for a couple reasons: First, because it’s in his hometown of St. John’s, Newfoundland, and second, it’s where he won the first of his record-holding six Brier championships as a skip.
Gushue has played in every big game possible. An Olympic gold-medal game, world championship final, now 269 Brier games, 190 of which are wins — both are the most of all time — but yet, the butterflies got to him before taking the ice to open this year’s Brier.
“I haven’t been this nervous in a long time,” Gushue said to a Curling Canada official as fans entered the building on mics picked up by the broadcast.
It followed with player introductions, usually a time when fans are still grabbing their snacks and drinks before reaching their seats at some point during the opening end.
Not this time. The sold-out crowd understood the moment, and when Gushue’s team was introduced, they gave him a long standing ovation — likely the first of many over the next week.
The building got loud immediately after as Gushue scored a quick deuce in the first end.
However, for the following five ends the crowd was taken out of the game as Quebec’s team led by skip Jean-Michel Menard was the only rink to score. The game was even at 2-2.
In the seventh end though, the crowd erupted as Gushue hung a four on the board after a miss by Quebec’s fourth-stone thrower Felix Asselin left an open draw to the four-foot.
“Hard to hear ya,” Gushue’s team said to each other as they tried speaking after the shot was made on mics picked up by the broadcast.
In the eighth, the fans stayed hot as they watched Gushue steal four to end the game.
Forget actually playing against Gushue, but being on the same ice while his rink is playing will be something every team has to manage this week. The folks of St. John’s have proved they will no doubt be carrying their end of the bargain in pushing Gushue to what they hope is a seventh Brier title.
King and his rookie squad live up to the hype
With Gushue and Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs, who’s coming off an Olympic gold medal just last Sunday, predicted to walk away with Pool A, there were a lot of questions of who might be the third playoff team to come out of this pool.
Ontario’s all-rookie team of Jayden King, Dylan Niepage, Owen Henry, Victor Pietrangelo showed on Friday during their 11-4 victory over Nova Scotia’s Team Kendal Thompson, they might just be the rink.
The win for King was historic in and of itself. Not only did he become the first Black skip to play in the Brier, but he also earned the first win by a Black skip.
Every end King and his team had Nova Scotia chasing, none more impressive than the fifth though. Ontario was sitting five without the hammer and Thompson needed to make precise hit and roll to score just one, but it rolled out and gave up four.
It’s not common to see a rookie team enter the bright lights of the Brier and just play such a sound game. This could be the beginning of a huge breakout week for King.
Jacobs steals opening draw win, literally
You couldn’t ask for a better game for Jacobs and his teammates Marc Kennedy and Brett Gallant to open their Brier title defence.
Last Saturday they were crowned Olympic champions with an epic win over Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat before arriving back in Canada on Tuesday, just to get back on a plane to Newfoundland to face Prince Edward Island’s Tyler Smith on Friday.
Oh, and they had to play the game without their lead Ben Hebert, who was battling an illness, but is expected to compete in the Brier.
It didn’t matter. Jacobs looked the same way he did in Milano Cortina — dialled in. He made all the tough shots for Canada, setting them up to steal six of their eight points in four-straight ends.
For a multitude of reasons Jacobs had no business winning this game, but somehow dug deep and found a way, which is scary for the rest of the field.
The Brier continues on Saturday with Draw 2 getting underway at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT.