Gushue’s teammates top finishers in round robin of mixed doubles trials
Walker-crocker go 8-0 in preliminary play, including a big comeback win over Gushue and Sweeting; Gallant-peterman first in other pool
Wednesday was a fantastic day for Brad Gushue and his world men’s champion teammates at the Canadian Olympic mixed doubles trials in Portage la Prairie, Man.
Competing separately, Gushue, Mark Nichols, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker played 11 games Wednesday and won all of them.
That wasn’t going to happen Thursday, only because the schedule called for head-tohead matchups involving members of the Gushue team.
One of those matchups saw Walker and Laura Crocker taking on Gushue and Val Sweeting, his teammate for the Trials, and the game proved to be a doozy.
Walker and Crocker, who are engaged, came back from a sixpoint deficit — the largest rally far at these trials — and completed the round robin with a perfect record at 8-0.
Crocker and Walker trailed Sweeting and Gushue 6-0 after two ends, but persevered to win 9-8 in an extra end. Sweeting and Gushue had the hammer in the extra frame and a shot at winning, but Sweeting’s last rock was heavy.
It was the second thrilling win in as many days by Crocker and Walker, who scored four in the final end to rally for an 11-10 victory over Kaitlyn Laws and John Morris late Wednesday night.
The loss dropped Sweeting and Gushue to 4-3 heading into their final preliminary game late Thursday night (the result wasn’t available by The Telegram’s press deadline) and in need of a win over Charley Thomas and Kalynn Park to secure a playoff berth, although there was a chance that they might make a playoff tiebreaker at 4-4.
The first- and second-place teams in each of two nine-team pools will advance to the playoffs along with the next four teams in the overall standings. Tiebreakers and the opening round of the playoffs begin today and the final is scheduled
for Sunday.
Crocker and Walker breezed into the playoffs as the No. 1 seeded team from the B Pool. The other top playoff seed will be the combo Gallant and Laura Peterman, who also had a game Thursday night, but had already locked up top spot in the A pool with a 7-0 record.
One of the wins by Gallant and Peterman came Thursday morning when they defeated Nichols and Jennifer Jones 9-6.
That left Nichols and Jones with a 5-2 record but still in a position to clinch a playoff berth with a win over Emilie and Robert Desjardins Thursday night. As it was, Nichols and
Jones looked to have secured at least a tiebreaker berth.
The winner of the tournament will represent Canada when mixed curling doubles makes its debut at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games next month.