Gushue goes for gold in men’s world curling
Brad Gushue will play for gold again at the men’s world curling championship after a 95 semifinal win over Scotland’s Bruce Mouat on Saturday
Gushue and Sweden’s Niklas Edin will clash for gold today in a rematch of last year’s final in Edmonton where Gushue won 4-2.
Edin will have last-rock advantage in to start today’s final as the higher seed.
“Niklas and his team are a great team. They’re one of the best in the world,” Gushue said. “They’ll have hammer starting out so really for the first five ends it’s going to be about trying to wrestle hammer back. I certainly expect a tight game and it to come down to last rock.”
Mouat faces South Korea’s ChangMin Kim — a 9-8 loser to Edin in the other semifinal — for bronze.
Trailing 5-4, Gushue scored three in the seventh end and stole a point in the eighth en route to the semifinal win over the Scots.
Gushue, third Mark Nichols, second Brett Gallant and lead Mark Nichols from St. John’s, N.L., went undefeated to win last year’s world championship.
They’re attempting to become the fifth team in history to win back-to-back titles.
All of them have been Canadian: Randy Ferbey (20023), Don Duguid (1970-71), Ron Northcott (1968-69) and Ernie Richardson (1959-60, 1962-63).
Scotland is a young team with an average age of 23.5. Mouat, 23, won a world junior title two years ago.
The Scots weren’t intimidated in their world championship debut going 111 in the preliminary round to earn a bye to the semifinals.
Gushue, 9-3, had to beat Greg Persinger of the U.S. 6-4 in a morning quarterfinal to advance. Canada lost 8-7 to the Scots on the first day of the tournament.
Wind and cloud cover over Las Vegas after several arid, sunny days contributed to a sudden increase in the humidity in the Orleans Arena on Saturday.
Draw weight and finesse hit and rolls were difficult on frosty ice. Ice crews scraped and pebbled the game sheet at the fifth-end break. Each player took a practice throw.
Down three points in the ninth end, Mouat attempted a difficult double takeout to score two. He missed and the Scots shook hands.
Mouat needed a hit and roll towards the button for one, but rolled the wrong way and gave up a steal.
But the turning point was the seventh, when Gushue’s angle raised locked two Canadian counters together on the edge of the button in the seventh. Mouat’s draw was a hair short of shot stone.
Gushue’s raise takeout to score three generated a triple fist pump from the skip and brought the pro-Canada crowd to its feet.
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