Gushue, with PEI’s Gallant, to play Carruthers in 1 pm final of the National, on CBC (Grand Slam)

(by Jonathan Brazeau)

OSHAWA, Ont. — Reid Carruthers faced three coming home but punched out Glenn Howard’s shot rock to secure a 5-2 victory and a spot in the men’s final of the National.

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Reid Carruthers at the 2015 Pinty’s GSOC National in Oshawa, Ont. (Photo: Anil Mungal)

Carruthers will take on 2006 Olympic gold medallist Brad Gushue, who earned an 8-6 win over John Epping in Saturday’s semifinals at the General Motors Centre.

Watch the National men’s final live on CBC Sunday at 1 p.m. AT / 9 a.m. PT

Although Carruthers has won this event before, taking the 2013 National title with Team Jeff Stoughton, it’s his first trip to the final at a Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event as a skip.

“I’m not going to lie, this is the first final I’ve been in as a skip on the Grand Slam series so I’m pretty excited,” Carruthers said.

Since parting ways and forming his own team last season, Carruthers qualified for the playoffs at five Pinty’s GSOC events but couldn’t get past the barrier in the quarterfinals.

His team went up against Team Brad Jacobs, of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., this time in the quarters and they took down the reigning Olympic champions 7-5 earlier Saturday.

“Obviously it was on our minds because since we started curling together, in the Grand Slams we had been to five quarterfinals and not made it past that point,” Carruthers said. “So this morning we’re playing the Olympic champs and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘we’re the underdogs here but hopefully if you play well, you can beat them.’ It worked out today.”

The win set up the semifinal showdown against Howard, a 16-time Grand Slam champion. Carruthers opened with hammer and blanked the first but was forced to a single in two by landing on the lid with a draw shot.

Team Howard, from Penetanguishene, Ont., faced two counters with their last in the third but came up light and gave up a steal of two to trail 3-0. Howard struggled again clipping a guard with his final shot in the fourth but already had shot rock and got on the board with a single.

The rinks alternated singles in six and seven as Howard was unable to mount a comeback.

Carruthers lost his first game of the tournament to Epping but then went on a roll and has won five straight. Gushue also holds a 5-1 record at the National with his lone loss coming against Calgary’s Kevin Koe, who prevailed again in a rematch of the Tour Challenge Tier 1 final during the round-robin portion.


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Meanwhile, Gushue earned two in the first and stole one in the second for a 3-0 lead until Epping went ahead with an amazing shot to score four in the third.

Gushue could only get a single in the fourth end to tie it but got lucky breaks in the next two ends stealing one in the fifth and three in the sixth. Epping counted two in seven but ran out of rocks in eight.

“It’s great we’re in a Grand Slam final,” said Team Gushue third Mark Nichols. “The second one this year and hopefully we’ll be on the other side of it tomorrow afternoon but we’re going to have to play a little bit better than we did tonight.”

Gushue is a three-time Grand Slam champion and won the National in 2010. Nichols also earned a second National title, coincidentally, while playing front-end with Carruthers on Team Stoughton before he rejoined Gushue last season.

“We’re going to have to play well,” Nichols said. “They seem to be curling really well and they’re confident. We’ve been playing well this week too so I expect a good back-and-forth game and hopefully we’ll have hammer coming home in the last end.”

Carruthers also shared what it’ll take to win and jokingly trash-talked his former teammate.

“They’re one of the best teams in the world,” Carruthers said adding with a smile, “We’re playing well so it should be a really good game but hopefully I can get him off his game, throw some jabs here and get in his head a little bit but it’ll be tough. He’s a pretty mentally strong guy.”

The National is the third stop — and second major — of the 2015-16 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season and runs through to Sunday evening at the General Motors Centre. Previously a men’s invitational, the National expanded this year to include a women’s division for the first time in the event’s history.

Tracy Fleury, of Sudbury, Ont., faces Ottawa’s Rachel Homan for the inaugural women’s National title. Watch at 5 p.m. AT/ 1 p.m. PT Sunday on Sportsnet.

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