Canada’s Team Brad Gushue remains undefeated after win against New Zealand at Pan Continentals

LACOMBE, Alta. — Canada’s Team Brad Gushue had only one game on the docket Monday at the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships. While limited in action, there was still plenty to gain for the Canadians, who improved to 3-0 this Monday afternoon at the Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex in Lacombe, Alta.

Team Gushue, of St. John’s, N.L., soared to a 10-5 victory against New Zealand’s Team Anton Hood, a team it has become familiar with at the past two editions of the Pan Continentals and world men’s championships. 

Skip Gushue, vice-skip Mark Nichols, second Brendan Bottcher, lead Geoff Walker, alternate Adam Casey, team coach Jeff Hoffart and national coach Jeff Stoughton remain in the top half of the men’s field approaching the halfway mark of the week. The team’s performance has been in the neighbourhood of what Gushue expects to be, but the path to perfection remains a constant for the six-time Montana’s Brier champion.

“The expectation is to always be a little bit better as the week goes, and I think right now each sheet is a little different, so we’re trying to feel out each one,” said Gushue. “I think once we get all four sheets played and we have an understanding of what we’re dealing with, it’s going to be easier to go in there and expect a higher performance.”

Canada dictated the game from the first end, taking advantage of a New Zealand miss to make a draw for three. Team Gushue followed it up with a sneaky hit and roll of the side of the eight-foot to hide behind cover, forcing the Kiwis to draw for one in the second end.

However, New Zealand was back on the offensive over the next few ends. First, Team Hood forced Canada to one in the third, followed by a blank and a score of two in the fifth, which brought New Zealand back into the mix.

“It was a really different situation. They were getting five-plus feet of curl on their draws and we were getting three. The red rocks were much straighter than the yellows, which I thought we picked up on, but it was just hard to follow their rocks. We just had to play it a little bit more simple,” Gushue said.

Canada shut down New Zealand’s progress in the sixth, with Canada scoring another three points. On Gushue’s first, he played a hit-and-roll (featuring a pillar-to-post sweep from newcomer Bottcher to hold the line) and followed it up with a hit to score a second three-ender.

“Brendan’s been doing good. His judging (of weight) is probably better than what was expected to start with,” assessed Walker, Bottcher’s front-end teammate. “As far as the sweeping goes, he’s giving it his all, and there’s probably going to be some tweaks he’ll have to make along the way, but he’s doing his best, and he’s doing really good.”

Canada gave up a score of two in the seventh end before scoring another three-ender in the eighth end to put the game out of reach, with New Zealand conceding.

Team Gushue will face its stiffest tests on Tuesday against a pair of teams with undefeated records. At 9 a.m. (all times Mountain), Team Gushue is up against Team John Shuster of the United States (3-0). That evening at 7 p.m. Canada takes on Japan’s Team Shinya Abe (3-0) to close the day.

In other men’s action on Monday afternoon, China’s Team Xiaoming Xu (3-0) remained undefeated after defeating Team Ken Hsu of Chinese Taipei (0-3) by a score of 12-4; Team Shuster and the U.S.A. outplayed Australia’s Team Hugh Millikin (0-3) with a 9-2 win; and Japan’s Team Abe remained perfect a 6-4 victory over South Korea’s Team Jaebeom Lee (0-3).

Canada’s Team Rachel Homan plays its second game of the day at 7 p.m. The team from Ottawa aims to remain undefeated in a game against China’s Team Rui Want (0-3).

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