For Canada’s Team Brad Gushue, it’s safe to say the retirement tour hasn’t been quite what he was hoping for.
He missed out on the Canadian Curling Trials playoffs in heartbreaking fashion, thus ending his chance to represent Canada at the Olympics. He’s also only qualified for the Grand Slam of Curling playoffs once in his two previous starts this season, where he bowed out in the quarterfinals.
But luck might be starting to turn in Gushue’s favour for his final Grand Slam event, the HearingLife Canadian Open in Saskatoon, Sask.
Despite not playing their best game, the Canadian squad managed to pull out a 6-5 victory against USA’s Team John Shuster, giving Gushue his best start in a Slam this season.
Draw 5
Y. Schwaller 6, Whyte 2
Ha 8, Kim 5
Yoshimura 9, Hasselborg 2
Muskatewitz 7, McEwen 6
Draw 6
Mouat 7, Kleiter 4
X. Schwaller 8, Constantini 7
Morrison 5, Gim 3
Jacobs 7, Epping 6 (SO)
Draw 7
Waddell 8, Casper 4
Homan 6, Kitazawa 4
Kang 6, Tirinzoni 3
Retornaz 7, Dunstone 4
Draw 8
Edin 9, Hoesli 3
Einarson 7, Wang 3
Fujisawa 10, Tabata 1
Gushue 6, Shuster 5
To nobody’s surprise, Bruce Mouat is off to another great start at a Grand Slam of Curling event, starting the week of 2-0, but he’s joined by some familiar names atop the men’s world rankings, like Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller, Gushue, and Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin, who are all undefeated as well.
On the Women’s side, the two Canadian teams — Rachel Homan and Kerri Einarson
— are 2-0, but they’re joined by the likes of a couple of Korean teams in Seung-youn Ha, Bo-bae Kang and Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa.
Xenia Schwaller and Stefania Constantini will be a thrilling matchup for years to come.
The two teams traded big blows from the jump, first Constantini, who got a deuce in the first end only for Schwaller to come right back with a massive four-point end of her own.
Both teams continued to swap the hammer, converting each time they had last stone
— a rare sight in today’s game — until it was tied 7-7 heading into the final end, setting up for a thrilling finish.
Constantini, without the hammer, needed to make a double-takeout with her last stone to even have a chance of winning, but unfortunately, the rock just over-curled, giving Schwaller the win without needing to throw her final stone.
Despite the anticlimactic finish, the first seven ends were amazing, creating an excellent match.
Korea’s Team Eun-ji Gim wasted no time coming up with a magical shot in her match against Scotland’s Team Rebecca Morrison.
With Gim’s final shot in the first end she was staring at an extremely congested four-foot with four stones surrounding the button, including Morrison’s shot rock that was sitting in the top four.
Gim couldn’t attempt to remove Morrison’s stone because of the guards out front, and if she got around the guards, the probability of jamming wasn’t worth it.
So instead, Gim decided to throw a hit-and-roll off Morrison’s rock sitting just above the tee line in the eight-foot, hoping it would go around the horn and spill back up into the button.
It did exactly that and Gim walked away with a hard-fought one point.
Best sweep and biggest momentum swing
You know it’s desperate measures when the skip has to sweep their own shot.
That’s exactly what Ikue Kitazawa ended up doing after she had an opportunity to pull even with Homan in the fourth end. The draw path was wide open for Kitazawa as she just needed to grab the middle of the eight-foot to secure the single point.
But life isn’t always easy.
As soon as Kitazawa let go of the rock, she knew it was light, and so did Hasumi Ishigooka and Seina Nakajima, because both of their brooms were moving as quickly as they could get them to go.
Even then, it still looked like the rock wasn’t going to get there. So, at the hog line, Kitazawa joined in to help the rest of the way and the team was just able to get the rock into the middle of the eight-foot, out counting Homan’s two stones to even the game at 2-2 heading to the break.
Kitazawa felt like they had gained momentum heading into the second half, and they probably would have, if they were playing anyone but Homan.
Homan wasn’t messing around in the fifth end. First Homan made a beautiful double-takeout, while keeping the shooter buried on the button. This left Kitazawa with nothing to shoot at, forcing her to draw, which she came up light on.
That mistake proved costly for Kitazawa as Homan was left an open draw for three, which she made no mistake with, opening the game up with a 5-2 lead.
From there, it was clear the fifth end was the deciding factor as Homan never really felt pressure from Kitazawa again, winning 6-4.
Sayaka Yoshimura might be the biggest x-factor at the HearingLife Canadian Open.
Even though Yoshimura lost her opening match against Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni 5-4, she still played well. Against Sweden’s Team Anna Hasselborg though, she took her game to a new level.
Yoshimura got her deuce in the first end with a clean hit, and from there it was game on for her. With the new blank rule – only allowed one per game — the second end isn’t where you want to use it, but thanks to Yoshimura’s great double-takeout while rolling out of the rings, Hasselborg was forced to take it considering she was already trailing two.
End after end, shot after shot, Yoshimura continued to do the same thing, rolling to a 9-2 victory.
The HearingLife Canadian Open continues tomorrow on Sportsnet+, starting at 9:30 a.m. ET/ 6:30 a.m. PT with Draw 9. Coverage begins on Sportsnet starting at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT with draw Draw 10.
Ha vs. Kitazawa at 9:30 a.m. ET/ 6:30 a.m. PT
Mouat vs. Casper at 1 p.m. ET/ 10 a.m. PT
Homan vs. Kim at 5 p.m. ET/ 2 p.m. PT
Jacobs vs. Gushue at 9 p.m. ET/ 6 p.m. PT
