Brier victory good as gold

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This article was published 02/03/2015 (4221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CALGARY — So why, if you already had an Olympic gold medal, would you even care whether you won a Brier?

The question, it turns out, answers itself.

“Why? Because it’s the Brier, man,” says Newfoundland third — and 2006 Olympic gold medallist — Mark Nichols.

“You grow up watching the Brier. You grow up watching guys lift the Tankard. It’s a part of curling history and it’s just something you want to do, no matter what else you’ve won. Everyone — every single curler at any level — wants to go to the Brier and win the Brier.

“And it’s the one thing we still don’t have.”

“We” in this case is, of course, the Newfoundland back end of Nichols and Brad Gushue, who memorably teamed up in 2006 to win gold in Torino, but a decade later are still chasing their first Brier title.

That’s not the conventional path in curling. The last three Olympic gold medals in men’s curling were won by Canadian teams, but Gushue remains the only one to do it without first winning a Brier.

Kevin Martin, for instance, had won four Briers before he won Olympic gold in Vancouver in 2010. And Brad Jacobs directly parlayed a Brier victory in 2013 into the Olympic gold medal he took down last winter in Sochi.

And yet here’s Gushue at the Scotiabank Saddleome this week, making his 12th Brier appearance but still looking to add an elusive Tankard to that gold medal hanging in the trophy case back in St. John’s.

Does it eat at him? Yes and no, he says. “Maybe at the end of the day, (winning a Brier) doesn’t matter. Maybe 30 years down the road at the end of my career I will look back and it won’t matter,” Gushue said Sunday after a pair of victories over Team Canada and Northwest Territories improved his team to 3-0, in first place heading into Monday.

“But it’s just something I’d like to tick off my list and put on the resumé,” Gushue continued. “It’s personally something that’s important to me. Human nature, I guess — you want what you haven’t got.”

There are many here this week who think this team and this moment might be the best chance Gushue has ever had to finally tick the Brier off his list. After a two-year detour to Manitoba where he played for Jeff Stoughton, Nichols reunited with Gushue this season and the result was a spectacular cashspiel season in which the team — Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker round out the squad — finished second only to Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen on the tour money list.

Nichols says playing in Manitoba with Stoughton the last couple years made him a better curler.

‘It’s personally something that’s important to me. Human nature, I guess — you want what you haven’t got’

— Newfoundland and Labrador skip Brad Gushue, shown celebrating his win Sunday over Team Canada

“For sure — no question about it. It was an awesome experience and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Jeff is a legend in the game.”

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Gushue will play Manitoba’s Reid Carruthers tonight in what will be Manitoba’s only game today. Gushue — who famously beat Stoughton in the 2005 Olympic Trials final after Stoughton told the Free Press prior to the event Gushue had “no chance” — said he’s not looking forward to facing Carruthers.

“To be honest, I’d rather be facing Jeff. We’ve had a lot more success against him than Reid these last few years,” Gushue said.

With Stoughton retiring last week, Gushue was asked for a final reflection on a man who played such a central role in the most important moment of his curling career. “The ‘no chance’ thing is the one thing I remember the most. Jeff took a lot of heat for it, but he was only saying what everyone else thought.

“I had no hard feelings about it. I used it as motivation — I’m not going to lie to you. But I didn’t take it personally and I don’t think he meant to hurt us. Like I said, he was just saying what everyone else was thinking.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek