Gut feeling pays off for Gushue
KINGSTON, ONT. Two-time Canadian champion Brad Gushue made one of the better shots of the Tim Hortons Brier on Monday night, for a grand total of zero points.
Gushue made a terrific, long, thin double with his last rock of the ninth end and rolled his shooter out to get a blank and keep the hammer in the 10th end, instead of simply hitting or drawing for a single point to tie the game.
The Newfoundland skip then went on to score two in the 10th and beat Brad Jacobs of Northern Ontario 7-6. Gushue is now at 4-1 after a 7-2 win over Nunavut on Tuesday.
It was all about playing the odds Monday and Gushue believed the difficult blank in the ninth was still easier than trying to steal a point in the 10th.
The decision making by Gushue reflects the modern trend of curlers using analytics to make ingame decisions.
Gushue said his St. John’s-based team doesn’t utilize analytics as much as many other teams, but they’re “aware of the numbers.”
Still, the decision on Monday night was more about gut than fancy stats.
“In that situation, we just know how good they are and we felt our chances were probably five to 10 per cent if we went to the 10th without hammer,” Gushue said. “I don’t care what the stats say, that’s the feeling we had.
“I don’t like those odds. I’d rather put the rock in my hands and try to make that double. If I make it, we’ve got a decent chance coming home. If we get some rocks in play, I might have a shot for the win and fortunately I did.”
OH, GRATTAN!
James Grattan admits he has trouble letting go of tough losses sometimes.
Fortunately for him, his teammates don’t have the same problem, and that allowed Grattan to get back into contention for the championship round at the Brier.
The 45-year-old New Brunswick skip won his second straight game Tuesday morning to improve to 3-2 and, at very least, stay in the hunt.
New Brunswick handed second-seeded Ontario (John Epping) his first loss on Monday night and followed that up with a 6-3 win over British Columbia’s Steve Laycock Tuesday morning.
Grattan was still annoyed about a 10-6 loss to Saskatchewan’s Matt Dunstone on Sunday. New Brunswick led 5-1 through four ends, but fell apart in the late going.
“We seem to recover well,” said Grattan, competing in the Brier for the 13th time. “We had a bad loss against Saskatchewan, but these guys don’t seem to dwell on it as much as I do. I’m supposed to be the veteran on the team.”
Grattan still has games against the Northwest Territories (Jamie Koe) and Team Wild Card (Mike Mcewen) and he likes his chances of moving on to the next stage.
GUNNER SHOOTS TO WIN
Manitoba’s Jason Gunnlaugson made perhaps the shot of the week on Tuesday morning, a double runback, double takeout to score three and beat Prince Edward Island’s Bryan Cochrane 9-8.
“It was a Hail Mary,” said Gunnlaugson. “They outplayed us all game.”
Gunnlaugson took a timeout to size up the shot, but had to quickly get back to the hack and throw as his team was down to 30 seconds on the game clock.
He then threw his red rock into a high yellow guard, running it back onto his own red rock, which in turn ran back into two yellow rocks near the four-foot and cleared them from the house to lie three.