Gushue edges Edin to begin run at Princess Auto Players’ Championship
TORONTO — It was a rematch but not a repeat of the world championship final between Canada’s Team Brad Gushue and Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin during Tuesday’s evening draw of the Princess Auto Players’ Championship.
While Edin earned the gold Sunday in Switzerland, Gushue and his crew from St. John’s, N.L., came out on top this time 6-5 to start in the win column at the Grand Slam of Curling season finale.
Team Gushue (81) also just barely edged out Team Edin (80) in shooting percentages.
“It feels good to get off to a winning start,” Gushue said. “I wouldn’t say it was either of our best. I think the energy levels are a little bit low, but getting a win early on in the competition against a team like Nik, I think it puts us in a good position.
“Now, hopefully, we can get some rest. We’ve got a two-game day tomorrow, which is going to be a challenge again, but we’re certainly in a better position with a win than we would have been had we lost that game.”
It doesn’t get any easier for both teams as their six-team pool is comprised entirely of skips who have won the Princess Auto Players’ Championship before. Gushue is set to face Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat and Winnipeg’s Team Brad Jacobs on Wednesday followed by Calgary’s Team Kevin Koe on Thursday and Calgary’s Team Brendan Bottcher on Friday.
“It’s tough. We played Bruce in the semifinal last week and now we play Bruce tomorrow, so we go Bruce-Nik-Nik-Bruce to start this and then we still have Brendan, Brad and Kevin,” Gushue said. “It’s an extremely tough pool and that’s why tonight’s win was so important because you get behind early and then you look and there’s four teams you have to play knowing you have to win three of them. That’s a pretty daunting task.”
Although Gushue opened with the hammer, Edin struck the scoreboard first stealing back-to-back singles to lead 2-0. Gushue rebounded big time in the third and capped things off with an open draw for three points to take the lead.
Edin tapped for two in the fourth to jump back ahead 4-3 heading into the break, but his double attempt in five missed, and Gushue capitalized to draw for another three points and a 6-4 advantage.
The seven-time world champion Edin was aiming for an angle runback in the seventh, but the raised stone took a different path. As lucky would have it, the rock managed to bounce off and in to turn into a single point and cut the deficit to one.
That still handed the hammer over to Gushue for the final frame, and the 14-time Grand Slam champion didn’t need to throw his last as Edin wrecked on a guard with his final stone.
While fatigue has set in having travelled her straight from the worlds, Gushue and his team are aiming to finish the season on top.
“The challenge is this is my favourite event but the last month has taken a lot out of us with the Brier, and then two weeks after we win the Brier we go to the worlds, and that was bit of a grind,” Gushue said. “The energy levels are not where we’d like them to be, but we want to perform as well as we can because it is such a fun event and it is our favourite event.
“You’ve just got to muster up enough as you can knowing that you’ve got all summer to recover. It’s just finding that energy level, which is going to be the tough thing.”
PRINCESS AUTO PLAYERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP: Live Scores | Draw Schedule | Broadcast Schedule
Elsewherein Draw 3, Saskatoon’s Team Mike McEwen scored three in the eighth end to defeat Team Joël Retornaz of Italy 9-7.
In women’s play, Anna Hasselborg drew for two points in the eighth end to lift her Swedish squad to a 6-5 victory over Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa.
“It feels really good,” said Hasselborg, whose team was eliminated during the qualification round of the world women’s curling championship last month. “We’re coming off of a really disappointing worlds, so we just want to finish off the season strong.
“We have a lot of good game in us, so we just want to play good games and hopefully, get a few wins.”
Team Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland earned a 7-3 win over Winnipeg’s Team Kaitlyn Lawes.
UP NEXT
The Princess Auto Players’ Championship resumes Wednesday with Draw 4 at 8 a.m. ET. Tickets are available at the Mattamy Athletic Centre box office and online at Ticketmaster.ca.
Broadcast coverage begins with Draw 9 Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET on Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ (Canada) and gsoclive.com (international).
NOTES
The Princess Auto Players’ Championship is the fifth and final Grand Slam of Curling event of the season featuring the top 12 men’s teams and top 12 women’s teams from around the world. … Both divisions are split into two pools of six for round-robin play. The best six teams advance to the playoffs with the top two teams receiving byes to the semifinals. If necessary, a tiebreaker round will be played Saturday morning to determine the final playoff berths. … The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled for Saturday with the finals on tap Sunday.
