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PICTOU COUNTY, N.S. — From coast to coast, Brad Gushue is back into the Slam of things at the KIOTI National.
Gushue just captured his second consecutive gold medal in the Pan Continental Championships this past weekend in Kelowna, B.C.
Now hitting the ice at the Pictou County Wellness Centre, Gushue and his St. John’s, N.L., crew are looking to three-peat in the KIOTI National and opened their title defence with a 6-3 victory over Owen Purcell’s club from Halifax.
“We’re pumped,” said Gushue, who threw a game-high 94 per cent. “I love playing Slams, these are my favourite events. We play on great ice against great teams and I’m expecting the crowds to get bigger as the week goes on and certainly later in the evening, so I’m looking forward to it.”
It was a matter of revenge for Gushue, who lost 8-4 to Purcell when they met earlier in the season on tour at the Shorty Jenkins Classic.
Purcell was invited to the KIOTI National as a sponsor’s exemption and was making his Grand Slam of Curling series debut, but Gushue wasn’t going to show him any mercy.
“We were out to get them today because they got the upper hand on us in the Shorty Jenkins earlier this year, so we were like, you know what, we’ve got to get them back,” Gushue said with a laugh. “I felt there might be a couple opportunities. First Slam, I think most teams when they play in these events are probably a little bit nervous, not used to the conditions, the amount of curl, so we thought we might take advantage of it.
“We got a couple misses out of them that I don’t think they would miss in a regular game or once they get used to playing Slams, so we were fortunate.”
After singles back and forth to start, Gushue put the pedal to the metal in the third end and made an open draw for a deuce.
Purcell attempted a double in the fourth to potentially take two and tie it back up, however, he was only able to eliminate one Gushue stone and counted just a single.
Gushue turned it up a notch in the fifth end and finished it off with an open draw for three. The pressure was on in the sixth as Purcell had to hit for a single point against five Gushue counters.
“It was a good start,” Gushue said. “We played pretty good, had a little few miscues in there but overall, pretty good game.”
Elsewhere, Brendan Bottcher scored four-enders in the second and fifth ends as his Calgary-based club powered past John Shuster’s American crew 8-1.
Sweden’s Niklas Edin and his squad scored a 5-2 victory over Scotland’s Ross Whyte’s team.
Aaron Sluchinski and his team from Airdrie, Alta., scored two in the sixth and stole one in the seventh to top Matt Dunstone’s Winnipeg team 8-6.
UP NEXT
The KIOTI National continues with Draw 4 at 6:30 p.m. local time (AT).
Broadcast coverage begins Thursday at 11 a.m. ET / 8 a.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.
NOTES
The KIOTI National is the second event of the Grand Slam of Curling season featuring 16 of the top men’s teams and 16 of the top women’s teams from around the world. … Each team plays four round-robin games with the top eight advancing to Saturday’s quarterfinals. … The semifinals are also on tap Saturday with both finals scheduled for Sunday.
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