Brad Gushue will face Switzerland’s Peter de Cruz this evening in the quarter-finals of the Boost National, the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event being played at the Conception Bay South Arena.
Gushue, Mark Nichols, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker finished the preliminary round of the event with a 3-1 record. Their lone loss came Friday night in their final round-robin game, when they dropped a 6-3 decision to defending Canadian men’s champion Kevin Koe of Calgary.
The St. John’s rink led 3-2 after six ends, but Koe scored four points with the hammer in the seventh, benefitting when a Gushue draw on his last rock didn’t go as planned.
The Gushue rink had entered the game already knowing it had a spot in the playoffs, but Koe needed a victory to avoid being part of this morning’s tiebreaker process.
As it is, Koe will face Scotland’s Bruce Mouat in the men’s quarter-finals, set for 5 p.m.
Another matchup has Sault Ste. Marie’s Brad Jacobs taking on Brendan Bottcher of Edmonton.
All six of those teams had 3-1 preliminary-round records. So did Sweden’s Niklas Edin, who awaits the tiebreaker between Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen and defending champion Ross Paterson of Scotland, teams with 2-2 records.
There is free admission to the 9:30 a.m. game between Paterson and McEwen.
The National began with 15 men’s and women’s teams, chasing down a total prize purse of $300,000.
The women’s quarter-finals, which begin at 1:30 p.m., have Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones up against Eve Muirhead of Scotland. Calgary’s Chelsea Carey taking on Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa playing Elena Stern of Switzerland and Robyn Silvernagle of North Battleford, Sask., in a matchup with Tracy Fleury of East St. Paul, Man.
Stren and Fleury have the only rinks in the competition with perfect 4-0 round-robin records.
Silvernagle and Fusijawa advanced to the playoffs with tiebreaker victories over reigning world women’s champion Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland and Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson, respectively.
The men's and women's semifinals are at 8:30 p.m. today.
The men's final is 1:30 p.m. Sunday., with the women's final set for 5:30 p.m.
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