Gushue defeats McEwen to win sixth career Brier title
It's a third-straight win for Gushue, and a sixth in eight years.
Team Canada's Brad Gushue continued his dominant run at the Brier, earning a record-extending sixth Canadian title as skip with a 9-5 victory over Saskatchewan's Mike McEwen in Regina on Sunday night.
It’s the record-tying third straight win for Gushue, and his sixth in eight years since his first in 2017. It is also a sixth win for Gushue’s longtime teammates, lead Geoff Walker and third Mark Nichols, and a third title for second E. J. Harnden.
Gushue, Walker, and Nichols tie Alberta’s Randy Ferbey with their sixth win, while Gushue is the first to win six as a skip. Ferbey, who won four of his six as a skip, also shares the record for consecutive wins, doing so between 2001 and 2003.
Gushue has now won the Brier in Regina twice, after previously doing so in 2018 for his second title.
After a blanked first end, Team Canada took a 2-0 lead in the second end, after a perfect draw from Gushue to find the edge of the button with his final rock. Saskatchewan responded with one in the third end, as McEwen was forced to hit for one point after Canada left rocks on either side of the rings.
Disaster struck for Saskatchewan in the fourth end, as Colton Flasch sent a rock all the way through the rings without hitting anything, and McEwan missed his opportunity to disrupt some Team Canada rocks in the house. Canada already had one rock in scoring position, with another just above the rings, and Gushue masterfully tapped the latter rock into the house, also curling in the shooter for a gain of three points and a commanding 5-1 lead.
McEwan picked up a single in the fifth end, trailing by three points going into the break, but in the sixth, Saskatchewan started to mount a comeback. The hosts loaded the area around the button with red stones, and were sitting three after a couple of mistakes from Team Canada. Gushue rearranged some of them with the final shot of the end, but after a measurement Saskatchewan held on for two points to reduce the lead to 5-4.
Saskatchewan controlled most of the seventh end as well, and Team Canada seemed to be up against the ropes, but a couple of perfect skip stones from Gushue won his team two more points, finished off by a brilliant double-takeout.
Team Canada pick up two points in the seventh end. (Footage via TSN)
Team Canada continued to pile on the pressure in the seventh end, sitting four before McEwan’s final stone. The Saskatchewan skip drew for one point, placing his rock in the four-foot ring to bring his team back within two.
Gushue sealed the victory in the ninth end, taking advantage of a mistake from McEwan, whose penultimate shot failed to go past the hog line and was removed. With his final shot, McEwan drew to the button, before Gushue knocked it out of the way for two points, sealing a 9-4 win.
With the win, Team Gushue will represent Canada at the 2024 World Men's Curling Championship, which will be held from March 30 to April 7 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. They will also return to the 2025 Brier as Team Canada once again, and have earned collected $108,000 in prize money.
If they finish in the top six at the World Championship, they will also automatically qualify for the Canadian Olympic trials in 2025, where they will try to book their ticket to the 2026 Winter Olympics. Gushue, Nichols, and Walker represented Canada at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, where they won a bronze medal — along with Brett Gallant, who has since joined Brendan Bottcher’s rink in Alberta, and finished third at the 2024 Brier.
Gushue and Nichols also won an Olympic gold medal in 2006, alongside Russ Howard, Jamie Korab, and Mike Adam.
Team McEwan, representing the host province Saskatchewan, was one of the major storylines throughout the week at the Brandt Centre in Regina. It was the first year together for the team — made up of McEwan, third Colton Flasch, second Kevin Marsh, and lead Dan Marsh — and they captured the hearts and support of the hometown crowd.
They topped Pool B in the round robin with a 7-1 record, including a win over Gushue (6-2), but lost to the Bottcher rink that finished second in Pool A in the first round of the playoffs. They responded with a win over the surprise playoff team from the Northwest Territories, before beating Manitoba’s Matt Dunstone on Saturday for a spot in the semifinal. On Sunday afternoon they won their rematch with Team Bottcher, setting up the final against Gushue.
Saskatchewan was looking for its first Brier champion since 1980, and McEwan’s team was the first from the province to reach the final since 1995. The Brier drew 101,401 fans to the Brandt Centre over the 11 days.
The 2025 edition of the annual tournament will take place at Prospera Place in Kelowna, British Columbia. It will be the first time the Brier is held in the city since 1968, and four years after the 2021 tournament was scheduled to be held there before being moved to a bubble in Calgary due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before the men’s world championships begin at the end of the month in Switzerland, the 2024 World Women's Curling Championship will take place in Sydney, Nova Scotia from March 16–24.
Canada will be represented in that tournament by Rachel Homan’s team that won the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts last month.
RELATED READING: Rachel Homan wins fourth Scotties title, defeats retiring Jennifer Jones
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