KELOWNA — Brad Jacobs had just come off the ice minutes after he and his Team Alberta suffered their first loss at the Brier, in their ninth game, and a few hours before he’d play his second game of the day to stay alive in this national championship.
“I think Brad Gushue just proved why he’s Brad Gushue,” Jacobs said.
And just like that, the skipper from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., summed it up perfectly.
On Friday afternoon at Prospera Place, Gushue and his defending champions won a Battle of the Brads showdown that was back-and-forth, clinical stuff, each team forcing the other to singles until Gushue earned a steal in the seventh end that helped pace his team to an eventual 7-4 win.
Jacobs now plays Team Nova Scotia Friday night in a win-or-go-home scenario, the first of four they’ll need to win to hoist the Tankard, which Jacobs did back in 2013, a year before he led Team Canada to Olympic gold.
“We can play a lot better than that,” said the 39-year-old, who curled at 86 per cent. “We’re gonna see how resilient we can be under pressure. So you know what? I’m looking forward to it.”
Gushue, a six-time winner here and the three-time defending champion, is now two wins away from making it an incredible seven total and four straight. Even in a field as loaded as this one, it’s hard to bet against him.
“He probably curled 100 per cent — I don’t think he missed a shot,” Jacobs said.
That’s pretty close: Gushue was two per cent shy of perfection, and as a whole, his Team Canada averaged a sparkling 94 per cent.
“I think it was more than me, I thought our team played really well,” Gushue said. “Geoff [Walker] made some big shots, Brendan [Bottcher] made some big shots, and Mark [Nichols] probably played his best game of the week. So you know, pleased with our performance.”
Especially because it not only puts the team a pair of victories away from another big win here, but they also gain valuable points towards qualifying for next year’s Brier, which is in Gushue’s home of St. John’s, Newf.
The 44-year-old skipper admits it’s wild to think about the fact that his team has not yet qualified. “But that’s what happens when you suck for half of the year, to be honest, like we weren’t very good,” he said. “We started off the season playing really well and got lots of [CTRS qualification] points, but we haven’t been good for the last couple months, and kind of put ourselves in this position where we have to play really well to finish off the year.”
Bottcher, the former Alberta skip who led his province to a Brier title in 2021, joined Team Gushue at second back in October in place of E.J. Harnden. “I think we were eyes wide open going into this that it was going to be a process,” he said of the team change. “To be a good team, and especially to have me completely change roles from what I’ve been comfortable doing in the past, was going to take a little bit of time.”
After what Bottcher calls a “honeymoon phase” in their earliest days together, cracking a Grand Slam final, the team struggled and headed here ranked fourth in Canada. “It wasn’t that we played bad, we just couldn’t quite put the pieces together at the right time, and we were building,” Bottcher said.
Leading up to the Brier, Team Canada got together out west in the Edmonton area, where Bottcher and Walker live, and in St. John’s, home to Gushue and Nichols. “We put the air miles in to spend time together and really build towards this Brier, and I’m just happy that so far it’s been paying off,” Bottcher said.
On Friday it did, and against the only team that went undefeated through the round-robin.
“He was maybe a half inch away from making that a knock for two, instead he gives up a steal,” Gushue said, of Jacobs in the seventh end. “So that was a big turning point there, but it wasn’t like he threw a bad rock. It just happened to curl a half inch more than what he was looking for.”
The game lived up to the Battle of the Brads billing in Gushue’s mind, even if it didn’t include some hearty booing like the last time these two teams met, in St. John’s at a Grand Slam, where Jacobs came away with a one-point win over the hometown favourites. This time, the near-capacity crowd cheered both teams in what was a close one until the last couple of ends.
“That’s kind of what we’ve come to expect when we play those guys —they get fired up to play us and we get fired up to play them,” Gushue said.
He ranks Jacobs among the top three or four skips he’s regularly faced over the years.
“He’s a great player and been really good at the Briers for a long time. I’m sure in the next five or 10 years he’s going to win a couple more of these, if not more than that,” Gushue said. “He’s an excellent player, he’s got an incredible team and they’re strong. They force you to play well to beat them.”
For Jacobs, Friday afternoon was a 10th straight loss in Brier playoff games.
“That’s a big game and unfortunately I haven’t been able to get through my career yet, which kind of sucks. It sucks going 8-0 and feeling like you can’t miss to coming out and still playing pretty good, and now it’s a long shot,” he said. “But at the end of the day, you know what, even though it’s a long shot, it’s still possible. And I believe in my guys, I believe in this team. And until we’re out of the event we’re going to keep fighting for everything we’ve got.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we run into those guys again here, and we’re gonna have to play just as well, if not a little bit better,” Bottcher said.
Next up for the defending champions is Manitoba’s Matt Dunstone, who earned a 6-5 win over Team Saskatchewan’s Mike McEwen Friday afternoon. Dunstone’s is the only team to beat Gushue here so far, in their round-robin finale on Thursday that came down to the last skip stones.
As for Gushue’s team, after a start to the season that sucked, according to the skip, they’ve seemingly found their groove.
“I’m confident,” Bottcher said. “We put this team together with the sole focus of winning.”
Jacobs joined Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert to that end ahead of this season, too.
“Hey, chins up,” Jacobs said. “We’re not out of the Brier yet.”