When Brad Gushue announced he would retire at the end of the 2025-26 season last September, it set up a poetic 23rd and final Brier appearance.
It’s poetic for a couple reasons: First, because it’s in his hometown of St. John’s, Newfoundland, and second, it’s where he won the first of his record-holding six Brier championships as a skip.
Gushue has played in every big game possible. An Olympic gold-medal game, world championship final, now 269 Brier games, 190 of which are wins — both are the most of all time — but yet, the butterflies got to him before taking the ice to open this year’s Brier.
“I haven’t been this nervous in a long time,” Gushue said to a Curling Canada official as fans entered the building on mics picked up by the broadcast.
It followed with player introductions, usually a time when fans are still grabbing their snacks and drinks before reaching their seats at some point during the opening end.
Not this time. The sold-out crowd understood the moment, and when Gushue’s team was introduced, they gave him a long standing ovation — likely the first of many over the next week.
The building got loud immediately after as Gushue scored a quick deuce in the first end.
However, for the following five ends the crowd was taken out of the game as Quebec’s team led by skip Jean-Michel Menard was the only rink to score. The game was even at 2-2.
In the seventh end though, the crowd erupted as Gushue hung a four on the board after a miss by Quebec’s fourth-stone thrower Felix Asselin left an open draw to the four-foot.
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