Brier takeaways: Gushue, Jacobs pushed to limit

For the first time all week, the hometown hero Brad Gushue had the fans worried until the last stone.

Gushue did eventually lower the heart rates of the crowd with a 9-8 win in an extra end over Nova Scotia’s Kendal Thompson at the Montana’s Brier in St. John’s, improving his record to 5-0.

But the six-time Brier champion was nervous that his team almost let the game slip away after Thompson had control for most of the match.

“Oh my god [laughs], yeah, it was always in doubt. That was a scary game. We weren’t very sharp today,” Gushue said in his post-game interview. “We’re fortunate to win that one. We got very lucky with that miss in the ninth end and scary 10th end, scary 11th end. Yeah, pretty stressful game.”

It’s been a rough couple of days for Thompson and his Bluenose rink. On Monday night, Thompson made a questionable decision with the game on the line that ultimately cost him the match against Quebec.

The ninth end versus Gushue on Tuesday felt the same way.

Up to that point, Nova Scotia had been the better team in the match. And even though Thompson was being forced by Gushue with his final shot in the ninth, he was shooting an outstanding 92 per cent, and outcurling Gushue by a wide margin.

But on Thompson’s final stone, disaster struck again as he flashed the stone he was trying to hit and gave up a steal of two, putting Gushue ahead 8-6.

“I certainly didn’t expect when my last draw finished that we would be two up coming home. We expected him to make the shot for one or he may have actually hit and rolled out on purpose to try and keep the hammer coming home,” Gushue said. “Being up two wasn’t in the cards.”

Gushue wasn’t able to keep the momentum going, however, and an early miss from his team allowed Nova Scotia to score two and force the extra end. The 11th end played out the same way but Thompson wasn’t able to secure shot stone with his final throw, allowing Gushue to escape with the win.

While they got the win, Gushue and his teammates were a step behind in reading the ice most of the game. Speaking afterwards, Gushue said that having the rocks textured on Monday — which happens once a tournament to make the stones sharper to produce more curl — threw his team off.

“Our team, historically, has never adapted really well to the sharper rocks. And they keep doing it, and we keep not adjusting as well,” Gushue said. “You know we got burdened in the trials. We played great, and as soon as they textured the rocks, we lost from there on out. So, it just doesn’t suit our game, and it just seems to be the direction that these events are going. They want six feet plus of curl, which I’m not sure why, but it’s frustrating.”

For Gushue, there are two positives from this game. First, the texturing of the rocks happened early in the event, so the team should be able to adapt as the tournament moves along. Second, going through the entire round-robin until facing Brad Jacobs in his finale on Thursday with no challenges at all would’ve set Gushue up to fail. 

Brad Jacobs was also put to the test (sort of)

Jacobs and Team Canada also had a tougher outing on Tuesday when facing Quebec’s team led by skip Jean-Michel Menard.

In the first five ends, Quebec gave Canada everything they could handle and trailed just 4-3 with the hammer heading into the second half. Quebec, unlike other teams Jacobs has faced so far, was making the shots not only to keep up with Jacobs but also to put Canada in trouble a couple of times.

The sixth end and beyond was completely different, however. Quebec’s front three played well, but Felix Asselin, their fourth-stone thrower, wasn’t making the same shots anymore. 

Jacobs, on the other hand, did connect on his shots as Canada pulled away to an 8-4 victory.

For the fifth day in a row, Jacobs has only played one game, and with each one, he and his gold-medal winning teammates Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert have only looked better.

E.J. Harnden doesn’t look ready to retire

The curling world, especially Manitoba’s team Matt Dunstone, will miss playing with E.J. Harnden, who is set to retire at the end of this season.

Harnden, an Olympic gold medalist with Jacobs in 2014 and three-time Brier champion, has been one of the best seconds in the game for a long time. The level of intensity and passion Harnden brings to each game is unmatched and Dunstone will have a hard time finding a replacement.

That skill and passion were on full display in an epic shot by Harnden on Tuesday.

Only a couple of rocks into the second end versus Alberta’s Kevin Koe, Dunstone’s rink was in big trouble. Koe had two in the rings with two guards lined up perfectly and was set up to steal. 

Harnden knew he needed to make some granite move, but he did even more than that. He made a double runback double to eliminate all of Koe’s stones while rolling Manitoba’s own guard perfectly buried under their corner guard. Manitoba went on to score two.

It’s rare to say someone throwing second stones earned your team a deuce, but in this case, Harnden certainly did. Maybe he shouldn’t retire just yet.

Mike McEwen continues to look off

“Magic Mike” continues to find ways to earn wins at this year’s Brier, even though his play hasn’t been the best.

The latest win came in a wild one against British Columbia’s Cody Tanaka, with McEwen sneaking away with an 11-10 victory in 11 ends.

Saskatchewan was able to produce points, scoring two or more in four ends with the hammer, but sloppy half shots by McEwen allowed Tanaka to stay in the match.

Now sitting at 5-1 on the week, McEwen is in good shape, but the toughest part of his schedule is yet to come. Both of his remaining games are against Manitoba rinks in Braden Calvert and Dunstone. A loss to Calvert would hurt his playoff chances a lot.

—With files from Kristina Rutherford