A Final Rematch!

Team Gushue, Team McEwen to clash again in PointsBet Invitational Final

One team hung on by its collective fingernails, the other put it in cruise control, and Sunday at the WinSport Event, they’ll meet again in the final of the 2024 PointsBet Invitational.

Top-seeded Team Brad Gushue (St. John’s, N.L.) needed every bit of the veteran savvy it has collected en route to winning six of the past eight Montana’s Briers to end the storybook run of the young Jordon McDonald team from Winnipeg in Final 4 action Saturday night.

And next up for Team Gushue will be none other than the team it beat in the most recent Montana’s Brier final, last March in Regina — third-seeded Team Mike McEwen of Saskatoon, who dominated No. 2 seed Team Brad Jacobs of Calgary in the other Final 4 matchup.

The men’s final is set for 3 p.m. MT.

Gushue, third Mark Nichols, second E.J. Harnden, lead Geoff Walker, and coach Jeff Hoffart had anything but an easy night against the No. 13 seeds, who had already upset No. 4 Team Matt Dunstone of Winnipeg in the Sweep 16 and No. 5 Team Kevin Koe of Calgary in the Elite 8.

It went down to the absolute wire as McDonald had a shot to tie the game and force a draw-to-the-button tiebreaker in the 10th end — an angle raise takeout that overcurled by a centimetre at most, causing the raised stone to roll too far and leave Team Gushue with shot stone to complete a grinding 9-7 win.

“It’s been a while since we had a junior team come out and make a lot of noise like they did this week, beating Dunstone and Koe, and to be honest, they probably should have beat us today,” said Gushue. “ They should be proud of how they played, and outside of a couple of misses there in the last end, who knows, they could have scored two and got the win.”

It was a back-and-forth game — McDonald made a wonderful pick to score three in the third end, only to have Team Gushue come back with three of its own in the fourth, followed by Team McDonald retaking the lead with a fifth-end deuce.

But after being forced to a single in the eighth end to tie the game 7-7, Team Gushue turned up the heat and it resulted in a steal in the ninth end to go up 8-7, and then a flawless 10th to produce another steal and the victory.

“We made some good shots in that last end; I think we made all eight shots and applied the pressure to them,” said Gushue. “It was a perfect end, really — I was proud of the way we played that end.

“First time in the final at the PointsBet; we lost in the semifinal the last two years, so it was nice to get past this one. It wasn’t our best performance; we missed some shots to apply more pressure on them than we should have. It was fortunate at the end that he just rolled a little bit too much on that runback and we squeaked it out.”

Team McEwen, meanwhile, had no such drama in a 10-3 win over Team Jacobs.

Team McEwen broke open a tight game against second-seeded Team Brad Jacobs of Calgary by scoring four in the fourth end. Jacobs missed his final two shots of the fourth, and McEwen was left with an open draw to put the four in the board.

McEwen, backed up by third Colton Flasch, second/vice-skip Kevin Marsh and lead Daniel Marsh, showed, again, the same kind of form that had produced two straight World Curling Tour victories coming into the PointsBet Invitational.

In the first end, he forced Jacobs to settle for a single with last rock after making a wonderful hit-and-roll to bury his shooter.

And end later, Jacobs had ratcheted up some pressure in attempt to steal, partially freezing shot stone covering the button. But McEwen made a wonderful shot to somehow move the shot rock and remain counting for a single.

After the big four in the fourth, Team McEwen added a stolen single in the fifth, and cruised home from there.

“They had heat on us the first two or three ends, so those were momentum shifts,” said McEwen of his shots in the first and second ends. “You’re getting out with a force when it looked like it might be a multiple for them. And then you get an opportunity (in the fourth end) and you strike.”

Playing in a third straight event final is another sign that this team’s early hard work has paid off.

“What a September for us,” marvelled McEwen. “Regardless of whatever outcome happens (Sunday), wow, it’s just exciting how well we’re playing in the first month of the season. Can we get better? I hope so. It’s fun to play like this.”

They may have to be against a team they’ll be playing for the first time since losing to them 9-5 in the 2024 Montana’s Brier final.

“Brad’s one of the game-management skips in my lifetime; it takes a lot of focus for the entirety of a game to beat a team like that,” said McEwen. “They just do not go away.”

But rest assured, Gushue has taken note of the way Team McEwen has performed early in the 2024-25 season.

“They look to be in mid-season form. They’ve been playing lots and practising lots, and we have to sharpen up,” said Gushue. “We haven’t had practice ice at home, so we’ll have to take the opportunities when we get them. I don’t think we’ll play as aggressive as we did today because they look to be playing really sharp and we could get burned with that. So we’ll see if we can ham-and-egg it and find a way to win the game.”

The women’s final Sunday at 10 a.m. will feature top-seeded Team Rachel Homan of Ottawa against Calgary’s No. 10-seeded Team Kayla Skrlik.

The winners of the championship games will add $24,000 to their winnings to round it out at a tidy $50,000/

Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2024 PointsBet Invitational are available by CLICKING HERE.

TSN and RDS will provide coverage of the 2024 PointsBet Invitational. CLICK HERE for the complete schedule.

For ticket information for the 2024 PointsBet Invitational, go to www.curling.ca/2024pointsbetinvitational/tickets/.

This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/2024pointsbetinvitational/nouvelles/?lang=fr