Gushue’s rise to the global curling championship was aided by residence regulations, therefore we must make sure our greatest players are playing together.
Our team has grown better as a result of our capacity to hire players from elsewhere.”
Brad Gushue, the skipper of Team Canada, along with Mark Nicholls, E.J. Hartden, Geoff Walker, and coach Caleb Flaxey, recently won their sixth Brier.
It is acknowledged by Brad Gushue that Curling Canada’s frequently altered residence regulations prevented Saskatchewan’s representatives from winning for 43 consecutive years while also helping his Newfoundland team win another national title.
The Canadian men’s curling championship will be held in Regina in 2024. If the current champion allowed this tiny, dejected Prairie province to win another Brier, wouldn’t that be sweet?
During a conference call earlier this week to preview the global curling championship, which is set to begin in Ottawa on Saturday, Gushue grinned and replied, “Not if I can help it.”
However, I would really like for Saskatchewan to triumph if we don’t. Second option, how is it going?
Gushue was displaying grace.
As a skip, he has an Olympic gold medal, a world championship, and a record five Briers. In compliance with those residence requirements, his team underwent a minor rebuild this off-season with the addition of Northern Ontario native and former Canadian champion E.J. Harnden.
The same scenario occurs in women’s curling, where fans chastise the rink for taking home just a bronze medal in the most recent world tournament, despite Kerri Einarson’s Manitoba-based team winning four straight Canadian titles and adding “free agent” Val Sweeting from outside the province.
Even though Sweden’s Niklas Edin is vying for his sixth consecutive win in the forthcoming event, formally named the BKT Tyres & OK Tyre World Men’s Championship, there are always extra high expectations for Canadian curlers.
Mark Nichols, Gushue’s longtime third, remarked, “I guess (Canadians) can continue to expect it, but continuously more times than not over the last little while they’re probably going to be a little disappointed.”
“Even though we still put a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform well, three different winners might emerge from a world championship three weeks in a row.”
Considering that he is not from a curling hotspot in Newfoundland, Gushue’s achievement has been extraordinary.
When he first gained notoriety in the early 2000s, Gushue struggled to assemble a competitive team from the small number of elite curlers in his province. In order to strengthen the team that won the 2006 Winter Olympics, he brought in seasoned player Russ Howard from Ontario via Nova Scotia.
Gushue reaffirmed his position prior to the 2012 Brier in Saskatoon, during which Curling Canada was frantically trying to create residence regulations that would be equitable and encourage teams other than the curling heavyweights of Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba to win Briers. Gushue made a comparable statement last week.
We need to make sure that our greatest players are playing together and establishing the finest teams if we want to be a competitive nation at the world and Olympic games and keep becoming better, Gushue stated. We are unable to achieve that by removing teams based on area.
There are several excellent curlers from the nation’s smaller regions who truly ought to be on the top three, top four, or top five teams in this nation and possibly the entire globe.
Curling Canada rules state that as of 2019, teams competing for provincial titles can have four members who must be citizens of the same province or who were born there, with one “free agent” from any other province allowed.
It’s made for some odd bedfellows, like Matt Dunstone, a Manitoban, who skiped a Saskatchewan rink to get into the Brier. They lost; since Rick Folk in 1980, Saskatchewan has not produced a Brier champion.
Gushue may presumably avoid the residence requirements next year thanks to his most recent Brier victory.
The rink will officially be Team Canada, with Gushue and Nichols from St. John’s, Harnden from Sault Ste. Marie, and experienced lead Geoff Walker from Edmonton, provided that three members of the team return for the 2024 Brier in Regina.
Without a doubt, it has made things easier for us, Gushue remarked. We have been able to assemble a more formidable squad thanks to our capacity to acquire players from overseas. I’m optimistic that will continue regardless of whether it does.
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Award-winning sports reporter Darrell Davis worked for the Regina Leader-Post for 25 years. In addition to writing for several newspapers and other publications, he is a journalism teacher and the author of six books. Additionally, he frequently appears on Rawlco Radio.
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