Canada's Team Brad Gushue emerged victorious against the United States' Team Andrew Stopera in a nail-biting semifinal at the 2023 Pan Continental Curling Championships at the Kelowna Curling Club.
The win has paved the way for Team Gushue to defend their gold medal in the forthcoming championship game.
Despite the final score being 8-3, the game was a lot tighter than the scoreboard made it look, coming down to the very last shot.
This victory has guaranteed Canada's participation in the gold-medal game, scheduled for Saturday at 3 p.m. Their opponent in the championship showdown will be none other than South Korea.
Team Gushue, comprised of Brad Gushue, vice-skip Mark Nichols, second E.J. Harnden, lead Geoff Walker, alternate Jim Cotter, coach Caleb Flaxey, and national coach Jeff Stoughton, are now set to face the only team they have yet to conquer in the 2023 Pan Continentals, Team Jongduk Park from South Korea.
The two teams previously clashed in the week's opening round-robin game, with South Korea emerging victorious.
Brad Gushue expressed his eagerness for the upcoming challenge, saying, "We want to be in that game. We play Korea, so we get an opportunity to play them again. We had a rough game against them the first game, so hopefully, we can give them our best and see how it turns out."
Throughout the match, both Canada and the United States displayed impressive defensive skills while occasionally missing opportunities to score.
The turning point came in the ninth end when Team Gushue executed a three-ender, breaking the tie that had persisted until that point. With the clock ticking and the odds stacked against them, the Americans were unable to mount a comeback in the 10th end, as Team Canada clinched victory with a two-point steal.
"There were a lot of opportunities for crooked numbers, and it just seemed that in the last couple of shots of each end, one team would make a shot to take it away, or one team would miss a shot to take it away. Fortunately for us, we got that hogged rock on Andrew's shot (in the ninth end) and that gave us a good opportunity to score two, then we were fortunate to get three because you don't often see [Dropkin] miss two doubles, so we were a little lucky on that one," said Gushue.
The decisive moment came when Andrew Stopera, the American skip, inadvertently hogged a rock in the ninth end, which opened the door for Team Gushue. Mark Nichols capitalized on the opportunity with a critical takeout, scattering three Canadian stones across the house. Gushue then sealed the deal with an open draw for three points, finally breaking the deadlock in the game.
Notable moments included Nichols' runback double in the third end, Gushue's perfect freeze, and Gushue's 20-foot runback to score one point against the United States in the fourth end.
Team Gushue is no stranger to the Pan Continental gold-medal game, having reached this stage for the second consecutive year. Last year, they triumphed over South Korea, led by skip Byeongjin Jeong, at the inaugural event in Calgary.
"Any event we play in, we want to be in that final. We've been taking every step towards that this week and now we're there. We need to just tighten those screws just a little bit more and come out firing in the final," added Nichols.
In the other semifinal match, South Korea's Team Park secured an 8-7 victory over Japan's Team Riku Yanagisawa, earning their spot in the gold-medal game. Meanwhile, the United States and Japan will face off in the men's bronze-medal game at 7 p.m.
Stay tuned for the women's bronze-medal game, where Canada's Team Kerri Einarson will go head-to-head with Team Tabitha Peterson of the United States.
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2023-11-03 21:00:00Z
CBMia2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNhc3RhbmV0Lm5ldC9uZXdzL1Nwb3J0cy80NTU2MTAvR3VzaHVlLVRlYW0tQ2FuYWRhLWRlZmVhdC1VU0EtZW4tcm91dGUtdG8tUGFuLUNvbnRpbmVudGFsLWZpbmFs0gEA
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