Players’ Championship Live: Gushue tops Bottcher in opener
TORONTO — Brad Gushue began his WestJet Players’ Championship title defence with a 7-2 victory in seven ends over Brendan Bottcher during Tuesday night’s opening draw at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Gushue opened with hammer and made a tap for just a single while facing a bundle. He swiped two points in the second when Bottcher flashed on his last.
The pressure was on in the third end with Bottcher facing five counters. He hit the shot rock, but it jammed and stuck around to count for another steal as Gushue was up by four. Bottcher cut the deficit in half drawing for one in the fourth and stealing a point in five, but Gushue scored a deuce in six to reclaim the four-point advantage.
Bottcher clipped the top counter with his last in seven to give up another point and shook hands.
Gushue is fresh off of capturing the gold medal at the world men’s curling championship roughly 48 hours ago defeating Sweden’s Niklas Edin 4-2 in Sunday’s final. The St. John’s, N.L., native became the first skip to win gold at the world juniors (2001), Olympics (2006) and world championship.
Elsewhere, world women’s champ Rachel Homan of Ottawa took down China’s Bingyu Wang 6-3.
Edmonton’s Val Sweeting edged double defending champ Eve Muirhead of Scotland 6-5. Muirhead’s former teammate Kelly Schafer is back in the lineup filling in for injured lead Lauren Gray.
Scotland’s Kyle Smith thumped Toronto’s John Epping 8-2.
Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock beat world bronze medallist Peter de Cruz of Switzerland 7-4.
Round-robin action at the WestJet Players’ Championship continues Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. ET with TV coverage starting Thursday at Noon ET on Sportsnet.
NOTES: The WestJet Players’ Championship is the fourth major and sixth event of the 2016-17 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season. … The Rogers Grand Slam Cup will be awarded to the overall season champions following the conclusion of the tournament. … Winners of the WestJet Players’ Championship will earn berths to the Humpty’s Champions Cup running April 25-30 in Calgary.
