Gushue just one win away from world curling glory

EDMONTON — There was a time last summer when Canada skip Brad Gushue didn’t know if he’d be able to play in a single game this season.

A left hip-groin injury that first bothered him in the spring was not progressing the way he expected.

“It was a real mental struggle and emotional too,” Gushue said. “You didn’t know where that light at the end of the tunnel was when I was going to be able to throw again.”

Mark Nichols took over as skip for the first few months with substitutes filling in at third. Gushue eventually returned in December and has continued regular physiotherapy, massage work and stretching routines since.

He has been able to manage the injury this season and his team hasn’t missed a beat.

Gushue’s quest for that elusive Tim Hortons Brier title ended last month and now he’s a win away from becoming a world champion.

Gushue, Nichols, second Brett Gallant and lead Geoff Walker were dominant last week at the Northlands Coliseum. They swept the 11-game round robin and beat Sweden’s Niklas Edin in the Page playoff 1-2 game on Friday.

Canada will play the semifinal winner — Edin or Switzerland’s Peter de Cruz — in the championship game Sunday night.

“We have played a lot of big games as a group,” Gushue said Saturday after a halfhour practice session. “I think we know how to handle it a whole lot better now than what we used to.”

Gushue and Nichols won a world junior title together in 2001 and took Olympic gold at the Turin Games five years later. The current four-man lineup has been together for three seasons.

The team has managed to stay on top of the rankings despite the unusual first half of the campaign.

Gushue won’t need surgery to repair his injury, which is actually the result of a tilted pelvis.

He plans to take two months over the off-season to get the muscles around the pelvis strong enough to hold it in place. Gushue is hopeful that will allow him to play painfree next season.

Gushue has a chance to become the first skip since Winnipeg’s Kerry Burtnyk to run the table at this event. Burtnyk swept the 10-team field en route to the 1995 title in Brandon, Man.

“A few years ago, I don’t think anyone would have mentioned him as the best skip out there,” Edin said of Gushue. “But now he’s definitely the best skip out there and not missing much at all.”