News Elite 10

WINNIPEG — It’s back to business for Olympic champion John Shuster.

After winning the gold medal at the Pyeongchang Winter Games last month, it’s been life in the fast lane for the American skip and his team from hitting the talk show circuit to throwing a ceremonial rock at an outdoor hockey game.

The extravaganza is on hiatus for now though with Shuster returning to the ice at the Princess Auto Elite 10.

Shuster picked up where he left off though maintaining his gold-medal form with a 3 & 2 win over Winnipeg’s Jason Gunnlaugson during Thursday’s opening round-robin draw.

“This is actually enjoyable,” Shuster said after scoring the win. “We’re having fun obviously doing the other stuff but it’s fun to come out here and curl again.”

Team Shuster second Matt Hamilton added: “It’s been insane, just go, go, go. I’ve been on the road the majority of the whole time I’ve been back. It’s fun, it’s an awful lot but it’s exciting to be a part of.”

The Princess Auto Elite 10 match-play format may go in their favour. Teams compete to win the most ends per game by either counting two or more rocks (with the hammer) or stealing at least one (without the hammer). Teams have to go big to score but if they struggle and give up four or five in an end, it’s still only worth one point.

Thinking time has also been altered at the Princess Auto Elite 10 to four minutes per end rather than having 33 minutes for the whole game.

“This format was, truthfully, I feel like it was built for us because we play really fast and especially when you have the timer every single end,” Shuster said. “Also, we like angles and that part of the game too so we had a lot of fun out there.”

After starting 2-4 in the Olympic tournament, Team Shuster pulled off the “Miracurl on Ice” winning five consecutive games — including two over Canada — to capture the gold medal with a 10-7 win over Sweden in the final. Shuster said the craziest moment on their celebration tour was throwing the rock at the outdoor game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Washington Capitals in front of 35,000 fans at Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Md., earlier this month.

“They were losing their minds in the stands,” Shuster said. “That was up there with walking in the opening ceremony of the Olympics with what they made us feel. It was awesome.”

“That was a lot of fun,” Hamilton added. “I like that the people that are in the know of curling know how that works but the people that don’t know about curling think we’re magic, which is great.”

Princess Auto Elite 10: Scores | Draw Schedule | Standings | TV Schedule

Meanwhile, Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers was clutch covering the pin to outduel Glenn Howard of Tiny, Ont. A draw-to-the-button shootout was required with the score all-square after eight ends. Howard went first and landed on the button, 0.8 cm from the pin, but Carruthers’s rock stopped on top of the hole.

Four-time Grand Slam champion Jeff Stoughton, who stepped back from competitive curling in 2015, is filling in at third and calling the game for Team Carruthers after Braeden Moskowy left the team Tuesday.

Toronto’s John Epping took a 3 & 2 victory over Niklas Edin of Sweden.

Teams receive three points for a regulation win, two points for a shootout win and one point for a shootout loss. The top six teams advance to the weekend playoffs.

NOTES: The Princess Auto Elite 10 is the fifth tournament of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season. … The winning team earns an invitation to the season-ending Humpty’s Champions Cup running April 24-29 at Calgary’s WinSport Arena.