A couple of weeks from now, Canadians will be cheering on Brad Gushue and his St. John’s rink at the world men’s curling championship in Las Vegas.
But on Sunday, it’s probably fair to say there was one part of the country that didn’t mind seeing Gushue and his teammates go down to defeat. That’s because hometown boy Mike McEwen defeated Gushue 3 and 1 in the final of the Princess Auto Elite 10, a Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event in Winnipeg.
McEwen was three up after four ends in the match-play game and cruised to a win that gave his team $28,000 of the $100,000 total prize purse and qualification for the Humpty's Champions Cup, the final Grand Slam event of the season.
In match play, teams win an end by either scoring at least two points with the hammer or stealing any number of points. Games are eight ends in length.
McEwen won four ends to one for Gushue Sunday and the teams shook hands after seven ends once there was no chance of the St. John’s rink winning.
Gushue, Mark Nichols, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker will now get some much-needed time away from competition before looking to defend their world men’s title beginning March 31 in Vegas. The team had come to Winnipeg directly from Regina where they had won their second straight Brier Canadian men’s title.
What might have been an expected Brier hangover could have contributed to a first-game loss to Glenn Howard in the Elite 10 preliminary round. However, Gushue and Co. then ran off five straight wins over some of the world’s top teams before coming off short against McEwen’s rink, which has announced it will be breaking up after their final two events of this curling season — the Players' Championship April 10-15 in Toronto and the Champions Cup April 24-29 in Calgary.
The Gushue team, which will also be competing in those two Slam events (they’ve won two others this season), recently announced it will be remaining together for another four-year Olympic cycle.
Twitter: @telybrendan
Edited to show that Gushue lost to Glenn Howard in opening game
