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HALIFAX — Until he wins a Brier, Brad Gushue knows he’ll go down in history as a one-hit wonder.
It was a hell of a hit, mind you. Top of the charts.
It was the Olympic gold medal at Turin 2006.
And Gushue could also go down as the grand old man of the Brier if he keeps representing Newfoundland every year.
He knows he’s likely to keep getting here again and again and again. He may set the all-time record for most games played and most wins at the Brier. He’s only 29 and he’s already been to the Brier seven times, half as many as Russ Howard’s record 14. He’s won 52 games. Howard won 113.
But unless he wins one title, until he takes the Tankard back to St. John’s and they have a parade down George Street or the streets named after Gushue, Mark Nichols or Jamie Korab after the Olympics, there will be a massive void there.
Alberta’s Kevin Koe has never been to a Brier before. And he may never get back here again. His team is almost certain to be breaking up at the end of the season. And Kevin Martin is keeping his 2010 Olympic gold-medal team together, likely for a run at Sochi 2014.
“Yeah, Gushue is guaranteed to be at this thing the next 10 years,” said Koe. “Who knows if we’ll ever get to one again because of where we live.”
Koe’s the complete opposite to Gushue as Alberta and Newfoundland meet in the sudden death 3-4 game at noon here, 12:30 p.m. in Newfoundland and 9 a.m. in Alberta.
Gushue has won all those Brier round-robin games but he’s only won one Brier playoff game. But this is where he won the Olympic trials, and the Newfoundland flags will be flying and the crowd will be cheering for the last Atlantic Canada team left curling.
“I think we’re a better team now than we were the last few Briers, so my expectations for our team are higher than three or four years ago. Definitely it would be fair to call me a perfectionist. My teammates know that and that’s why they love me and that’s why they hate me.”
Gushue admits he came back from winning a gold medal feeling the rink had to start winning Briers to certify that the Olympics weren’t an aberration.
“I didn’t just want to fall off the scene. I didn’t want people to think that Olympic gold medal was just a one-off.”
Gushue didn’t get to the Roar of the Rings Olympic trials in Edmonton. So people can now think what they want to think. But the Brier is still there. That’s the validation he needs.
You’d figure there’d be more pressure on Koe because he can’t say wait until next year. But the skip of the Edmonton Saville Centre team says they’re not going to apply it to themselves like Gushue might.
“We look at it as an opportunity,” said Koe. “This is a great opportunity for our team.”
Third Blake MacDonald might be calling it a career after his next loss. But he’s not looking at it as do or die either.
“I’ve waited a long time for this. If you told me at the start of the season I’d be in the 3-4 game at the Brier, I’d have been as happy as I could be. It is an awesome opportunity.”
Gushue says for him, there’s pressure.
“But you need pressure. To me it’s a positive thing. I like to play the games where you get nervous before you play them. I’ve learned how to handle that. I get excited by being nervous. I like to get the nerves going.”
Third Mark Nichols said he knows he’ll quite likely be back a few more times. But ...
“Eventually you’d like to win one of these. We’d liked to have won one of these by now.”
Koe has had a slightly better record against Gushue than the other way around over the years, including the 7-6 win early in this Brier. But Koe, other than a Canada Cup, hasn’t been able to win three straight games against top teams to win a Slam. Gushue has done it twice this year. In that Canada Cup, Koe beat Gushue in the 1-2 game and won the final over Martin.
Three straight wins is what it takes to get out of the 3-4 game and win the Brier. And since they adopted the Page playoff system in 1995, nobody has ever done it.
“Eventually someone will,” said Nichols.
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca