The Tim Hortons Brier bronze-medal playoff game nobody wanted to play turned out to be a crowd-pleaser for 6,685 at the John Labatt Centre on Sunday afternoon.
Said winning-skip Brad Gushue of St. John’s:
“It feels a little bit better than I thought it would to win the bronze medal but I think it meant a little bit more because Mark (third Nichols) and I were out there for the last game for at least a couple of years. It was nice for us to go out on a winning note.”
The boys from Newfoundland put an emphatic capper on a fairly aggressive rockfight in the eighth end when Gushue executed a takeout to score four big ones and put the wraps on a 10-5 triumph over Alberta’s gold-medal winning skip Kevin Martin and his slightly revamped Edmonton lineup.
“We had some fun out there and I think it was positive in the end,” said Martin, the pre-Brier favourite who finally, officially, finished fourth.
“We were willing to go out and play this . . . and play this well. A lot of good shots were made out there. Because of the crowd, we tried to put on a really good show. I hope we did. I hope everybody enjoyed it.
“I think everybody had fun but I also think it was important that the players put forward our thoughts. To make sure that they (powers that be) understand how it (playing the bronze game) is for us.
“But, the fans are more important than anybody and to have a proper game and a good game was fine. Both teams were more aggressive than they’d normally be. But that was fun. That’s good for the crowd.”
Alberta was missing all-star second Marc Kennedy who flew home late Saturday to be with his wife who was expecting a baby on Sunday.
The teams traded singles, then deuces, and a lot of wild circus shots but Gushue took control with another deuce in the fifth and the theft of one in the sixth when Martin eschewed a draw and missed runback shot.
“The runback was more fun,” Martin explained the strategy.
The Albertans managed to reply with a deuce in the seventh end before the Rocksters applied the crusher in the eighth.
Gushue shrugged at the suggestion his team was having more fun that the Martin team.
“We’re used to losing a little more than they are,” said the 30-year-old Newfoundland skip whose team was top-ranked after the round robin.
Click for full story at the CCA website.
Here are post-draw interviews with both Kevin Martin and Brad Gushue.