Toronto’s John Epping had to be near-perfect in order to beat defending Canadian Open champion Brad Gushue in Sunday’s Men’s Final at the Grand Slam of Curling Canadian Open competition at the Gallagher Centre.
He was just that, as the 32-year-old shot 100% to lead his team of third Mat Camm, second Patrick Janssen and lead Tim March to a perfect 6-0 record at the Canadian Open with an emphatic 7-4 win over Gushue in the final. “To go through a Grand Slam undefeated says a lot,” mentioned Epping. “I think they are some of the toughest events to win.
“You’re playing the number one team in the world, then number two, number three, and we’ve played some hot teams this week and to come through that undefeated, it just gives us a huge amount of confidence.”
That confidence was on display early on as Epping rode a wave of momentum into Sunday’s final, making what some are considering the shot of the year in Saturday’s semi-final against Kevin Koe, a wonderful raised takeout for the semi-final win; a shot that he repeated twice more in the final. “I was lucky to have a hot hand for those,” said a grinning Epping following the Canadian Open final, adding that while he made the shots, the final result wasn’t purely because of his play. “It’s not just me. I’ve got a good team around me to help me make those shots and to win these events you have to make big shots like that.”
Gushue opened the game with the hammer, but Epping forced the skip from ‘The Rock’ to take one in the first before scoring a pair of his own with one of his soon-to-be trademarked angle raises in the second end for a 2-1 Epping lead.
Epping once again forced Gushue to take a point in the third with some tactical curling, followed immediately by yet another spectacular shot as Epping pulled off an incredible in-turn raise for two more points and a 4-2 lead after four ends.
A single point by Gushue in the fifth end cut the Epping lead to one at 4-3, but an Epping takeout shot in the sixth end knocked two Gushue rocks out of the house and gave the Toronto skip three more points and a 7-3 lead.
A single Gushue point in the seventh proved to be not enough to warrant the game to continue and out came the handshakes, giving Epping his third career Grand Slam title, but first with the trio of Camm, Janssen and March. “I’m so happy for these guys. It’s their first Slam win and they deserve it,” said Epping of his teammates. “It’s such an easy feeling out there and we have great chemistry and they’re great guys and we’re really good friends and it’s awesome.”
Epping then said that he felt as if he and his team were putting together some of their best curling of their careers as of late, which included a semi-final appearance at The National earlier this year. “This is definitely some of the best curling that we’ve ever played together,” mentioned Epping, continuing, “The last month has been two Grand Slams and the Canada Cup and to come out and peak during that time and play really well in those three events, it’s just a great way to go into Christmas.”
Following the Christmas break Team Epping will be back on the ice focusing on winning their Provincial play downs before hoping to make a run to the Brier.
