As one of the greatest Tim Hortons Briers ever played wrapped up Sunday, it was fitting that one of the best skips of a generation emerged victorious.
Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue won his third Canadian men’s curling championship with a 7-3 victory over Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher in the Brier final before a standing room only crowd at Leon’s Centre.
Gushue had to come the long way to win it — beating world No. 1 Brad Jacobs in the 3-4 playoff game on Saturday and then topping Saskatchewan’s Matt Dunstone 7-6 in Sunday’s semifinal — before taking down Bottcher in the final for the second time in three years.
“Friggin awesome … it feels absolutely incredible,” Gushue said moments after securing the victory with a hit for one point in the 10 th end.
“To win in this field, which I believe is probably the strongest field I’ve certainly played in out of 17 Briers, and to come through and play the way we did today, that’s special to play our best game in the final.”
Gushue, 39, third Mark Nichols, 40, second Brett Gallant, 30, and lead Geoff Walker, 34, will represent Canada at the world men’s curling championship in Glasgow, Scotland, March 28-April 5. The foursome won the world championship in 2017 and took silver at the worlds in 2018.
“To win in this field, which I believe is probably the strongest field I’ve certainly played in out of 17 Briers, and to come through and play the way we did today, that’s special to play our best game in the final.”
Brad Gushue
So, is this a dynasty building out of St. John’s?
“That’s for you guys to decide,” said Gushue, who was named most valuable player of the Brier. “We’ve been in four out of the last five finals so we’ve been playing pretty good at this event, but it’s just fun to win this, I don’t think about all that other stuff. What an incredible week. We played so well.”
It was the third straight Brier final loss for Bottcher and his Edmonton teammates Darren Moulding, Brad Thiessen and Karrick Martin, a foursome that has suffered far more than its fair share of heartbreak despite being one of the world’s best teams since 2018.
Alberta went 10-1 in the round-robin, beat Saskatchewan’s Matt Dunstone in the 1-2 Page playoff game on Saturday night and had hammer in the first end of the final against Gushue, but simply could not capitalize.
Gushue was great all week as well, going 8-3 in the round robin and 3-0 in the playoffs to stand atop the podium.
He curled 97% in the final, while his team came in at 86% overall.
Bottcher, unfortunately, curled only 71%, easily his worst game of what had been a great week.
“We just got off to a bit of a slow start, didn’t play our best early and you can’t give that big of a lead to those guys,” an incredibly stoic Bottcher said.
“We did everything we needed to do to be ready, we just didn’t come out and play our best. Brad played great. We gave him some pretty easy shots. Me and the guys needed to shoot a little bit better.”
Moulding was much more emotional after suffering through the Brier’s version of Groundhog Day once again and still not getting it right.
“I’m starting to get older so I don’t know how many times I’m gonna be able to get back here,” Moulding said, choking back tears. “I’m just proud of the guys. I just wish it would have turned out different. I know we can play a lot better than that.”
For Gushue, it was a terrific culmination of an epic Brier, which featured tremendous shot-making from an elite field, stellar fan support, and a perfect setting — beautiful and lively downtown Kingston.
A total of 96,076 fans filled the building throughout the week at the 5,700-seat Leon’s Centre.