Hometown horror on a St. John’s Saturday night
ST. JOHN’S—Groans could be heard at the Mary Brown’s Centre as Team Brad Gushue lost to arch-rival Brad Jacobs in the KIOTA National quarterfinal round.
Two-time defending Brier champs Gushue, Mark Nichols, Geoff Walker and new second Brendan Bottcher fell to Jacobs’ Alberta outfit by a score of 6-5.
Jacobs scored three in the third end to take a 4-2 lead and managed the scoreboard the rest of the way. A Gushue steal in the seventh end to tie the match went for naught, as Jacobs made an open hit for the victory coming home.
The hometown heroes had gone 2-2 in their pool and needed a big performance against Jacobs, who stepped into the skip role with Bottcher’s former teammates, who released their skip last spring.
It didn’t quite happen for Team Gushue, as a difficult season without a tour title continues for a squad seeking to rediscover their mojo.
The win should boost confidence for Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert as they continue to play well following a tricky start to their own season.
Scattered boos came from the St. John’s crowd while Jacobs delivered his final stone.
While this horrifies most fans, most of today’s male athletes—when asked by The Curling News—seem to be fine with it... and want more crowd engagement, in fact.
In other results, Scotland’s Bruce Mouat and Ross Whyte were victors over USA’s John Shuster (7-2) and Italy’s Joel Retornaz (6-3) respectively, and Saskatchewan’s Mike McEwen defeated Germany’s Marc Muskatewitz 6-5.
In the women’s quarterfinal draw, Winnipeg’s Kerri Einarson eliminated Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa 12-3, Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg outlasted Christina Black of Halifax 7-6 in an extra-end, Eun-Jung Kim defeated countrymate Seung-youn Ha 6-3 and top seed Rachel Homan stole a 7-6 extra-end victory over Japan’s Sayaka Yoshimura.
Homan will face Kim, the 2018 Olympic silver medallist, in one women’s semifinal while Einarson faces Hasselborg in the other.
The men’s semifinal draw also goes on Saturday night.