Team Gushue puts two wins in the bank to open 2024 Pan Continental Championships

LACOMBE, Alta. — Team Brad Gushue hoped to check a few boxes on the opening day of the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships.

A couple of wins. Two solid performances. And, yes, officially welcoming Brendan Bottcher into the lineup.

Consider those boxes emphatically checked off after a brilliant Sunday at the Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex, capped by a 17-1, six-end win over Chinese Taipei’s Team Ken Hsu (0-2) in the late draw.

Gushue, vice-skip Mark Nichols, second Brendan Bottcher, lead Geoff Walker, alternate Adam Casey, team coach Jeff Hoffart, national coach Jeff Stoughton will take a 2-0 record and high spirits into action Monday in Lacombe, having met most, if not all, of their priorities and expectations on Sunday.

“I think we did,” said Gushue, whose St. John’s, N.L., team is pursuing its third consecutive Pan Continental Championships gold medal. “Obviously the first game with Brendan, we didn’t know what to expect. We got through that one, and I thought it was a little bit of an improvement tonight, on some of the things that we wanted to improve on from the first game. We’re getting a feel for the ice, although it was different tonight than it was in the other game. We’re just trying to learn the surfaces; we have two (sheets) mapped out now; we just have to figure out the other two..”

 The Canadians, 10-3 winners over South Korea on Sunday morning, were in full control the whole way against the inexperienced Chinese Taipei quartet.

Gushue had an open hit to score three in the first end, and then the three-time defending Montana’s Brier champs ramped up the pressure in the second, forcing Chinese Taipei last-rock thrower Eric Stevens to try to draw to the side of the button for a single. Stevens was well short of the rings, and it resulted in a steal of five.

The game was never in doubt; after forcing Chinese Taipei to a single in the third, Canada added a deuce in the fourth (after which Casey left the bench to replace Walker in the lineup), a stolen single in the fifth and then a game-ending steal of six in the sixth.

One of the pre-game priorities, suggested Nichols, was to not lose focus against Chinese Taipei, even if Canada built up an early lead.

“We had a meeting prior to the game and we talked about being precise, regardless of the score, regardless of the situation,” he said. “It is easy to let your mind wander a little bit as games get out of hand a little bit, but I thought we did a pretty good job of remaining focused and concentrating 100 per cent through every shot.”

Team Gushue returns to the ice for a single game on Monday, at 2 p.m. (all times Mountain) against New Zealand’s Team Anton Hood (0-2), with the Canadians hoping to build on the positive vibes from Sunday.

“I thought there was a very light feeling within the team — we were just enjoying ourselves,” said Gushue. 

“I thought the communication was sharp; we made a lot of really good shots. We had some other loose shots as well, but I just liked the feel out there. We worked well together. It seems to be a good fit — still just two games, but I would say that in the two games, it probably exceeded my expectations for how things went.”

In other Sunday night games, John Shuster and Team United States (2-0) scored four in the ninth end and stole the winning point in the 10th in a 7-6 triumph over South Korea’s Team Jaebeom Lee (0-2); Japan’s Team Shinya Abe (2-0) was a 7-4 winner over Australia’s Team Hugh Millikin (0-2); and China’s Xiaoming Xu (2-0) turned back New Zealand 7-5

Canada’s Team Rachel Homan, meanwhile, has a pair of games on Monday: at 9 a.m. against Chinese Taipei (0-1) and at 7 p.m. against China (0-1).

Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships is available by CLICKING HERE.

All games are being streamed live on The Curling Channel. CLICK HERE for details.

Ticket information for the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships is available by CLICKING HERE.

This story will be posted in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/category-all-posts-fr/?lang=fr