Canada’s Team Gushue to play for bronze at Pan Continental Championships

LACOMBE, Alta. — Canada’s path to the podium will reach the bronze-medal game in the men’s competition at the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships after a semifinal loss to Japan on Thursday evening at Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex.

Japan’s Team Shinya Abe is moving onto the gold-medal game following an 8-4 win over Canada’s Team Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L. Team Gushue, two-time Pan Continental gold-medallists, have only lost three games at this event dating back to 2022, but Thursday’s loss was the most crucial.

“Absolutely, there’s disappointment. Personally, I felt like I didn’t have a very good game. Disappointed that I let the guys down. Disappointed I let myself down. We’ll have to try and regroup and have a strong game tomorrow. It’s just disappointing that our worst game was in the semifinals,” Gushue said.

Skip Gushue, vice-skip Mark Nichols, second Brendan Bottcher, lead Geoff Walker, alternate Adam Casey, team coach Jeff Hoffart and national coach Jeff Stoughton will play Team John Shuster of the United States in the bronze-medal game on Friday at 2 p.m. (all times Mountain).

China’s Team Xiaoming Xu defeated the U.S.A. 7-4 to earn its ticket to the gold-medal game against Japan, slated for Saturday at 10 a.m.

Despite not having hammer to start the game, Japan fired out of the gates. Canada chased Japan for much of the first end, with Team Gushue’s final draw wicking on a guard and giving up a steal of two.

“They had good feel and we didn’t. I overthrew my draw against two and gave up two. We were on our back foot after that, really trying to chase and while we had some opportunities, they either made a great shot, got a break or we messed up,” Gushue said.

That steal of two was the first time the opposition scored in the opening frame against Team Gushue all week long and put Canada in a most precarious position early in the game. 

Canada replied with a skip’s deuce in the second. Team Gushue played a picture-perfect freeze on Japan’s stone to sit one. Japan fourth-rock thrower Tetsuro Shimizu attempted to slash it out but missed the mark, leaving Canada’s draw for two.

The teams exchanged points in the third and fourth ends, but Japan elevated itself closer to victory through the fifth and sixth. Every time Canada set something up, Japan seemed to have an answer, either making a timely draw or powering its way through with house-clearing runbacks.

In the fifth, Japan had a chance to split a pair of stones into play for three. While it was a close attempt, the Japanese settled for a deuce and then forced Canada to one in the sixth for a one-point lead with hammer.

With a blanked seventh, things were looking bleak for Canada. However, a sliver of daylight emerged for Canada in the eighth when Japan missed a wide draw to the four-foot for two and settled for a single.

In the ninth end, Canada was clinging to anything it could in the house to set something up for a score. Team Gushue decided on a difficult runback double to score up to three on its last but missed the mark. Japan stole two and Canada conceded.

“I thought we were just a bit off on our feel game tonight. We sat a little bit heavy on a number of shots and that definitely was the difference. We’ll get some rest tonight, come out and practise tomorrow and try to dial in that draw weight as quick as we can because that was probably our worst game of the week when it came to draw weight,” Nichols said.

Women’s action will continue on Friday morning at 9 a.m. Canada’s Team Rachel Homan will play its semifinal game against China’s Team Rui Wang. The winner advances to the gold-medal game on Saturday at 3 p.m and the loser will play in the bronze-medal game on Friday at 7 p.m.

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