After five days of action at the North Battleford Civic Centre, the stage is set for Sunday’s championship contests at the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling’s Meridian Canadian Open.
On the men’s side, it will be a marquee matchup between two of the best teams in the world as St. John’s Brad Gushue will take on Sweden’s Niklas Edin at 11 a.m.
Gushue punched his ticket to the final with a 4-0 shutout over Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, in a game where he never had the hammer over the course of all seven ends.
“That was very different from most games that I’ve ever played in, but when you don’t have the hammer that means you are scoring points,” Gushue said.
“They were making everything in the first three ends and it was very hard to generate any offence. We were finally able to get a mistake out of them in the fourth end to get a steal, and that’s really what changed the course of the game.”
The other semifinal was a back-and-forth battle between Edin and John Morris of Vernon, B.C. The Swedish foursome picked up a 7-4 victory.
“We had a bit of a rough start, and they made some really nice shots to get three points on us in the fourth, but we were able to get things back on track,” Team Edin third Oskar Eriksson said.
“I felt like we struggled a little bit with the ice early on, especially compared to our quarter-final game against Team Bottcher, so we will have to be much sharper in the final tomorrow.”
The Edin rink have won two of the three Grand Slam of Curling Events so far this year, as they defeated Jacobs at the World Financial Group Masters in Okotoks, Alta. in October and followed that up with a win over Scotland’s Kyle Smith at the Tour Challenge in Okotoks, Alta. a month later.
Gushue, meanwhile, has won six Grand Slam titles and most recently won the Players Championship in Toronto last April.
On the women’s side, it will be Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni taking on Lethbridge’s Casey Scheidegger at 3 p.m.
Competing in her first ever Grand Slam of Curling event, Scheidegger and her rink continued their surprising run to the final after a 7-3 win over Edmonton’s Val Sweeting.
“It’s starting to sink in a little bit for us now,” Scheidegger said. “We were all a little bit in shock after that win.
“We’re going to enjoy the experience tomorrow of being in our first Grand Slam final. When you’re enjoying what’s happening out there, often times you find yourself playing well, and that’s what it has been like for us this week.”
The Tirinzoni rink will be heading to their second straight Grand Slam of Curling final after a 7-4 win over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg.
“I think there’s much more of a comfortability factor for us as a team this time around compared to the last event,” Team Tirinzoni substitute third Cathy Overton-Clapham said.
“We’re just gelling as a team right now and a result of that, we’ve been playing very well.”
Tirinzoni, who has one career Grand Slam of Curling victory, lost the final of the Boost National last month in Sault Ste. Marie to Winnipeg’s Kerri Einarson.
Her lone Grand Slam victory came at the 2015 Tour Challenge in Paradise, N.L. when she stole two points in the final end to defeat Ottawa’s Rachel Homan.
