Three-man Olympians beat Saskatchewan

Playing against the odds as well as opponents, the hobbled Brad Gushue squad has earned their way into Sunday’s Brier semifinal.

Gushue, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker scored a 9-7 last-shot victory over Saskatchewan’s Colton Flasch in the 3 versus 4 Page playoff match which, unlike the Page 1 versus 2 game, may become a classic.

“It was a great game,” acknowledged Flasch. “Anytime you’re on the losing end of game like that, you can kind of live with it because you know you played well. You play bad and lose it’s not as good, but we played great.”

In the second end, Gushue broke a scoreless tie with an angle raise tap and stick for two. Regular third Mark Nichols, isolating in his hotel room due to his positive test and watching on television, promptly tweeted out a series of fire emojis.

That was just the beginning of the fireworks.

Down 3-2 in the fifth end, Flasch made a double to tie the score.

In the eighth end, Gushue made a double for two and a 7-5 lead.

By this point, Nichols had posted a running commentary of issues (Stress, Enjoyment Being in Hotel Room) and coping mechanisms (Caffeine Consumption), each numerically ranked.

In the final end, Gushue trailed 7-6 and faced a long angle raise to a covered Saskatchewan stone on the button. his Wild Card team owned second and third shot stones but couldn’t jam the runback.

The two-time Olympic medallist made it perfectly, scoring three for the 9-7 victory.

Flasch said that the dramatic 10th end demonstrated why Gushue has the reputation he has built.

“I made a great roll on mine, and Brad made a great hack-weighter that was not easy, and he makes the end goal run,” said Flasch. “He’s one of the best players in the world for a reason.”

Gushue said that Flasch certainly did not make it easy on him in that final end, as he went to throw his final stone.

“I was thinking, ‘damn you Colton Flasch for making a perfect draw on your last one,” said Gushue. “He made an incredible draw.

“Colton played really, really well that game. And he put it in a perfect spot, where really the only way we could score a multiple point end was playing that runback, and I felt confident what the rock would do there, so I just had to throw it good. And I threw it, and I was just a little bit tighter than what I wanted, but Brett held it there the whole way.”

Gushue said playing with only three players remains a challenge in delivering precise shots.

“You don’t have two guys sweeping, you don’t have the ability to steer a rock the way we can—like hold it straight or carve it,” said Gushue. “I got two really good mixed doubles players. I can shift around, but it’s still not the same and obviously we’ve lost, you know, arguably our best shooter. So not having Mark in there, as good as Brett and Geoff are, no disrespect to them—or as little disrespect as possible,” he said with a laugh, “they're not Mark Nichols.”

Gushue had managed expectations coming into the post-Olympics Brier, but allowed them to grow during their successful 8-0 round robin performance. He’s returned to ratcheting down expectations for the three-player team, and described the challenge as playing a hockey game and killing a penalty for 60 minutes.

“Our odds of winning this thing when Mark went down went from a very high percentage to a very, very low percentage, and we’re realistic about what’s going to happen (Sunday),” he said. “We’re going to have to play spectacular, and need probably some uncharacteristic misses, because we don’t have the ability to be as precise as we normally do when we have four guys out there.”

Gushue takes on the defending champion Brendan Bottcher foursome on Sunday morning, with the winner set to face 2021 finalist Kevin Koe of Alberta in the final on Sunday night. Koe defeated Bottcher in the Page playoff 1 versus 2 game on Saturday night.

Meanwhile, as Flasch packs up from his Brier experience, he says the fourth-place performance his team delivered this week will raise expectations for them in the future.

“It just shows that we belong,” said Flasch. “We’re a great team, and everyone knows it now.”