Gushue’s Wild Card trio pulls off the impossible winning Brier short-handed

| March 14, 2022, 1:24 AM

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — Brad Gushue had his hands in the air, and as his yellow stone took out Kevin Koe’s red rock and stuck for a single point, the skip from Newfoundland said, to no one who could’ve heard him over the roaring crowd: “Oh my god.”

Gushue couldn’t believe it, and he probably still can’t, but his team pulled off the unbelievable on Sunday night: They won the Brier for the fourth time — and the kicker is, they did it short-handed.

In front of a boisterous crowd at the Enmax Centre, Brad Gushue, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker won Canada’s men’s curling championship while their third Mark Nichols tweeted, crushed donuts and nearly threw up from stress in his hotel room where he’s isolated after testing positive for COVID-19 two days earlier.

“What the three of us pulled off here in the last few days, man oh man, that’s pretty crazy,” a grinning Gushue said when it was all over, with a gold medal dangling from his neck and a smile on his face.

For the record, the exact thought going through Gushue’s head once he made the last shot to seal a 9-8 victory over Team Alberta: “Oh my god, I can’t believe this.”

It felt great leaving his hand, too.

“I was half-tempted when I let it go to give a little bit of a fist-pump, because it was pretty pure, and we just didn’t have the broom in the right spot,” the 41-year-old said with a smile.

Gushue, Gallant and Walker are the first three-man team in history to win the Brier, a position they were forced into after travelling here without an alternate and seeing Nichols, who’s arguably their best shooter, ruled out as soon as the playoffs began because of a positive COVID-19 test.

“Once Mark went down, it was a huge longshot for us, but to be honest I think it kind of inspired us and we found some extra energy and we knew we had to be our best,” Gushue said. “Man, Brett and Geoff, the way they adapted to the new positions, the way they played, it was incredible. Very proud of them. This is pretty amazing. I never thought this would happen when Mark went down.”

That really was the feeling of the night: Nobody on Team Gushue — the guys who won Olympic bronze last month — could quite believe it. Once it was over, Gushue, Gallant and Walker shook hands with Koe, Ben Hebert, B.J. Neufeld and John Morris, and then the three champions went in for a bearhug, burying their faces in one another’s shoulders while Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” blasted from the speakers.

Sunday morning in the semifinal, Gushue’s Wild Card trio earned a win over the defending champions here, skipped by Brendan Bottcher. After that game, Gallant looked at the TV camera, held up a single finger and said, all fierce-like: “One more!” And then he and Walker and Gushue went out and got that one more.

“I think we all believed in each other that we could still do it,” Gallant said. “I mean, yeah, what an amazing 48 hours.”

This championship game went back and forth and back and forth and in the end, the difference was two big ends for Team Gushue.

“When we scored that second three, I knew we had control of the game,” Gallant said of the sixth end when they took a 6-4 lead. “I knew they were going to fight right ’til the end and it wasn’t gonna be easy, but the three-pointers were the theme for us today and we had some big ends and we capitalized on them. That was the difference.”

Koe was down by two heading into the 10th end and came up with the much-needed deuce to force the extra, but it was Gushue who was in control to close out the game with the hammer.

“They did a better job at making us pay for our misses than I thought we did on them,” Koe said after it was all over, one hand on his hip.

Koe, a four-time Brier champion, finished runner-up here last year, too. His team is amicably breaking up after this season.  

“I mean, it’s going to be disappointing — I thought this was ours for the taking, we were playing good, we had the hammer, get off to a steal of two, kept fighting back,” Koe said. “You know, obviously it’s great to be curling again in our home province in front of all our friends and family. This one will probably sting more than the other final losses.”

Koe and his team were the crowd favourites this week, but Team Gushue was a close second. They all had family here, too — Gushue said after a month away for the Olympics, they wouldn’t have made the trip without family. Walker’s wife, fellow curler Laura, had tears in her eyes as she hugged him after the game. They’re expecting their second child later this year, and their first, Liam, was there cheering on dad this week, wearing a “Walker” curling jacket, walking around like a little toddler penguin. Gushue pulled his two daughters and his wife in for a hug, and then his parents, who had tears in their eyes.

Meanwhile, Nichols tweeted and celebrated from his hotel room, and probably ate more donuts. He credited one of the many donuts he devoured during the game for his team’s first three-point end, in the third: “Honey Cruller for 3 baby!” That was his second donut of the evening and the game had barely started. His self-rated odds of barfing (which he also kept track of on Twitter) went up and up and up, partly due to donuts, but mostly due to stress.

Gallant fought back tears thinking that this would likely be the final Brier this foursome would win together. He’s getting married to fellow curler Jocelyn Peterman this summer, which will likely mean he’s moving out of Newfoundland, and will likely be looking for a new team. (Nobody’s saying anything for sure yet, sports fans).

“Honestly, when Mark got sick, I thought I’d be a really tough way to end eight years [together], without him on the ice,” Gallant said, watery-eyed, speaking slowly and pausing to collect himself. He even apologized for the emotion.

“It means a lot that if this is our last season, we’re gonna go out with all four of us side-by-side,” he said. “Sorry. Yeah, Mark’s one of my best friends. I’m really looking forward to getting on the ice with him again.”

That’ll happen relatively soon. Next up for this team is the world men’s curling championship, which is just a couple of weeks away in Las Vegas.

“I couldn’t be more excited to represent Canada again with these guys,” Gallant said. “Even though we came home with a bronze medal from Beijing, I think we’d love to give it our best shot at bringing home a gold in the world championship.”

And, of course, they’ll get to do so with Nichols in the lineup.

“The bad thing now is we gotta wait a couple days before we can even just embrace him and give him a hug and kinda celebrate this, which is unfortunate,” Gushue said. He also added, in case anyone wondered: “Even though we pulled this off, we’re a better team with Mark.”

“I can’t believe we got that done,” Gallant added.

Gushue had told his wife, Krista, just a couple of days ago that their chances of winning the Brier with three players were “very minute.”

“And to actually pull it off?” he said, grinning. “I, just. … I’m shocked.”