After an injury-plagued first half of the 2016-17 curling season, Brad Gushue started off the second half on a winning note at the North Battleford Civic Centre.
His St. John’s, N.L. rink, which includes third Mark Nichols, second Brett Gallant and lead Geoff Walker, captured the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling’s Meridian Canadian Open title Sunday afternoon after an 8-3 win over Sweden’s Niklas Edin in seven ends.
“It’s a great way to start off 2017 for sure,” Gushue said. “2016 was a bit of a forgettable year for me, so to start off this year with a win at a Grand Slam event is a nice feeling.
“What’s better though is the way that we played all week. It’s certainly a huge confidence booster for us as we go forward this year.
Gushue, who has now won seven Grand Slam of Curling event titles, made his season debut at the Boost National in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. last month after being sidelined with hip and groin issues.
“There was a little bit of rust to shake off as we all got back to our regular positions again, but we’ve been curling with each other for so long now that it only took us a couple of games to get back into the swing of things,” Nichols said.
“I felt like we all played well from top to bottom all week long and that’s exactly what we were hoping for as we get ready for our provincial playdowns in St. John’s in a couple of weeks time.”
The Canadian Open title was the Gushue rink's first since capturing the 2016 Players Championship in Toronto.
The key turning point in Sunday’s match came in the second end of play, when a hit attempt went awry on Edin’s last shot and allowed Gushue to make a fairly simple takeout for four points and a 4-1 lead.
“It was kind of back and forth between both of us early on,” Gushue said. “The angles were looking OK for us and I felt like we had a decent chance of getting two points.
“I made a decent shot on my first (where he came through a port to take out Edin’s rock and sit two) and Niklas made a mistake where he just missed out on making the hit. If he had made that, we probably only would have scored one point or maybe two at best.”
Edin, who has won two Grand Slam of Curling events this year, tried to claw his way back, but Gushue scored three more points in the sixth end to put things out of reach.
The two-time world champion did finish things off on a high note, however, as he made the Jeff Stoughton spin-a-rama shot on the final stone of the game.
“I made a terrible mistake there on my last shot in the second end,” Edin said. “After that, it was pretty much game over.
“It was still a terrific week for us and we got some big wins, even though we weren’t playing at our best. To be able to make it to the final is something that we can be happy with going forward.”
The Canadian Open will conclude at 3 p.m. with the women’s final, as Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni takes on Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge.
Tirinzoni, who was the runner-up at the Boost National earlier this year, will be looking for her second career Grand Slam title.
Scheidegger, meanwhile, will look to conclude her remarkable run at her first ever Grand Slam of Curling event with a championship win.
