Defending champ Gushue defeats Dunstone at AMJ Players’ Championship to snap GSOC losing streak
TORONTO — The losing skid was weighing on the mind of Brad Gushue during his first game of the AMJ Players’ Championship on Tuesday night at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Gushue and his crew from St. John’s, N.L., had lost seven straight games in the Grand Slam of Curling, stretching back to the KIOTI National in their hometown in late November. His team went winless through the WFG Masters in January, something that hadn’t happened to Gushue at an event in the series since 2006.
Snapping the streak to start the fifth and final Grand Slam of Curling event of the season wasn’t going to be an easy task as Gushue faced Matt Dunstone, whose Winnipeg team won both of their matches during last month’s Montana’s Brier.
The 15-time Grand Slam champion prevailed, defeating Dunstone with a narrow 4-3 victory to kickstart his title defence in the event.
“I knew that was a long one, much longer than I’ve had in my career, and I wanted to break it,” Gushue said. “Obviously, having to play a team that’s been playing great all year, not an easy start, but to come out with a win, we’re pretty excited.”
The key moment of the game came in the seventh end with Gushue ahead by one point and holding the hammer. Facing two Dunstone rocks, Gushue opted to peel out the shot stone and give up a steal to tie the game rather than score a single point. Although it may seem counter-productive, the move allowed Gushue to retain the all-important hammer coming home.
It was a bold strategy that paid off and was also one that Brad Jacobs used against Gushue during their encounter in the KIOTI National quarterfinals that resulted in a chorus of boos from the St. John’s crowd.
Nobody heckled Team Gushue here — and if it sounded like anyone was, they were probably saying Boo-ottcher for second Brendan Bottcher. Instead, a slow clap grew as the skip executed an open hit to score the winning point in the eighth end.
“Against Matt and those guys, with the firepower that him and (third) Colton (Lott) have, you know if you leave some rocks around that he’s probably going to have a shot for a big end at the end,” Gushue explained. “We’ve been in a situation with them before, two up without, and it always seems like Matt has something to pull it off.
“I felt pretty confident. The draw weight out there was easy to read that if we could just open it up and have a shot at the end, I liked our chances. It was pretty junky there until my first one, but fortunately, I opened up the four-foot (circle) on that and just had to play a quiet little hit on the last rock. It worked out good. Sometimes you could look foolish when you do that, but today it worked out.”
This is the 10th time since 2013 that the AMJ Players’ Championship has been held at the Mattamy Athletic Centre. Gushue has played in all of them and has established his own legacy at the historic venue formerly known as Maple Leaf Gardens. He’s captured the AMJ Players’ Championship twice and secured the former season championship known as the Rogers Cup three times, with Tuesday’s victory marking his 42nd win on this ice.
“This has always been my favourite event to play, the Players’ Championship in Toronto, in this building. I’ve always enjoyed it,” Gushue said. “If it’s going to be a while until we come back, I’m certainly on the older side here, so this is a good chance that this might be my last one in this building unless it comes back in the next four or five years. It certainly sounds like we’re going to be moving on.
“I’m a little sad that’s the case, but this building’s been good. I’ve won a couple Grand Slams in here, had some other good weeks and some Rogers Cups … we’ve won a number of those in this building. It’s going to be sad that we’re not going to be coming back anytime soon and this building has been fun to play in.”
The Grand Slam of Curling released its schedule for next season with the AMJ Players’ Championship set for Jan. 6-11, 2026, at the Southeast Event Centre in Steinbach, Man.
Elsewhere in Draw 3, Team Yannick Schwaller downed Team Marco Hösli 7-1 in a rematch of the Swiss men’s curling championship finals.
In women’s play, Sweden’s Team Anna Hasselborg fended off South Korea’s Team Eun-ji Gim 5-4 in an extra end and South Korea’s Team Eun-jung Kim earned a 7-5 decision over Sweden’s Team Isabella Wranå.
UP NEXT
Round-robin action resumes Wednesday with Draw 4 at 8 a.m. ET / 5 a.m. PT. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster.ca.
Live streaming of every game is available in free preview via HomeTeam.
Broadcast coverage on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ begins Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET / 8:30 a.m. PT.
NOTES
The AMJ Players’ Championship features the top 12 men’s teams and top 12 women’s teams from around the world. … Round-robin play runs through to Friday evening. Six teams qualify for the playoffs in both divisions, with the top two receiving byes to the semifinals. … If necessary, one tiebreaker draw is slated for Saturday morning. … The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled for Saturday. Both finals are on tap Sunday.
