Eight Ends is your daily one-stop shop for all things curling with news, notes, insight and analysis through the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. We’re even up late so you don’t have to be.
First End: Canada’s Brad Gushue bounced back into the win column big-time with a 10-5 victory over John Shuster of the United States during the Sunday morning draw in Beijing at the Winter Olympic Games. The 2006 gold medallist, Gushue improved to a 3-2 record in the men’s curling tournament after consecutive losses to Switzerland and Sweden. Gushue needed that rebound to get back on track, especially with a logjam starting to form in the middle of the standings with teams bunching up at 3-2 and 2-3 records as we cross the midway point of the event.
Second End: A Canadian team started with the hammer? Yup, that actually happened, as rare as it’s been in Beijing, although Gushue had to settle for a single in the first despite some early struggles from the American team. You’ve heard of a skip’s deuce — where the skip scores two on their own rocks — and this was like a skip’s force. Shuster threw two great shots and Gushue had to draw to the back of the button for just one.
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Third End: After Shuster fired two great shots in the first, he delivered goose eggs on the shot percentages in the second. Shuster’s raise takeout attempt went right through the hole untouched and allowed Gushue to lie four stones. Gushue swiped them all as Shuster needed to hit on the nose, but his shooter didn’t curl enough, chipped off and rolled out to fall behind 5-0.
Fourth End: Gushue took a 7-1 advantage into the break with all four members of the team throwing 93 per cent during the first half. Gee, are they Doug Gilmour fans or something?
Both teams subbed in their alternates ahead of the sixth with Marc Kennedy taking over for Canadian second Brett Gallant and Colin Hufman subbing for American lead John Landsteiner. It might have been a surprise to see Kennedy come in against the U.S., but with a six-point lead, the comeback was (seemingly) out of reach. Gallant is a hard sweeper it’s good to give him some rest when you can. Kennedy is competing in his third Olympics after capturing gold in 2010 with Kevin Martin and finishing fourth in 2018 with Kevin Koe. The 40-year-old Kennedy, who plays third for 2014 Olympic gold medallist Brad Jacobs, finished a perfect 100 per cent on his seven shots.
Fifth End: Seemingly out of reach, eh? About that. You can’t write off Shuster early — he did pull off the “Mira-curl on Ice” to win gold in 2018 after all — and he came alive again in the sixth with an incredible in-off shot to score three points from out of nowhere and cut the deficit to 7-4. That kept the game going a little while longer than anticipated, but the gap was still too much to overcome. After singles back and forth, Gushue took two in the ninth and out came the fist bumps.
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Sixth End: Canada’s Jennifer Jones was also looking to snap a two-game losing skid on the women’s side but couldn’t upend Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni. The two-time reigning world champion, Tirinzoni has been the class of the field and was victorious 8-4 to improve to a 5-0 record while Jones dropped to 1-3.
Jones will have to do her best to win out from here as the “warning” sign is now flashing. From how we saw the standings shake down in the mixed doubles, falling to a fourth loss in a nine-game round-robin tournament might not outright eliminate you but you’ll need some help in order to make the cut and that could be the case here.
Seventh End: The 2014 Olympic gold medallist, Jones was able to wrestle control of the game tied 4-4 with the hammer. Jones flashed her first skip stone in eight and an angle-raise attempt on her last went straight back to miss the Swiss pair of stones to give up a steal. Jones needed to make another tricky runback in nine and wrecked on a guard to hand over another pair. The 10th was more or less a victory lap for Switzerland with no guards remaining midway through the end and nowhere to hide for Canada. Jones never got through her skip stones as Swiss fourth Alina Pätz ran Canada out of rocks.
Eighth End: Gushue’s next game is against Italy’s Joel Retornaz (Monday 1:05 a.m. ET). Mixed doubles gold medallist Amos Mosaner plays third for Retornaz, but the team hasn’t maintained his undefeated momentum. Instead, the Italians looking to win one game at 0-4. Retornaz defeated Gushue in their first head-to-head games at the 2006 Turin Games, but Gushue has won all four meetings since.
Jones also plays an 0-4 team next in ROC, skipped by Alina Kovaleva (Sunday 8:05 p.m. ET). Kovaleva is better than her record indicates having captured silver at the World Championship last year and will be just as eager to try to get things going as Jones.
