‘It happened overnight’ says Gushue, but now he’s relishing his role as a veteran skip

There’s a little bit of grey nibbling away at his temples now but the boyish good looks are still there.

And yet somehow, strange as it might seem, Brad Gushue has become one of the elder statesmen in men’s curling in Canada.

“To be honest, it happened overnight,” Gushue said. “I felt like walking in to the locker room, I was always the younger guy and didn’t have the experience.

“Then all of a sudden, a year or two pass and I look around and holy smokes, there’s only two or three guys who are older than me.”

It’s hard to believe it’s been 22 years since Gushue graduated out of juniors after winning his second world junior title in 2001.

Now 42, he’s behind only Glenn Howard, 60, and Kevin Koe, soon to be 48, in terms of age and skipping experience in the upper echelon of Canadian men’s curling. It’s a role he’s grown to enjoy.

“I think the experience we’ve gained over the past 20 years has been pretty incredible,” Gushue said.

“I love the fact that I’ve got the experience where I can provide people with a little bit of, I don’t want to say guidance, but maybe opinion on what should happen. Whether they listen or not is a different story.”

He’s also trying to offer his input behind the scenes with respect to the future of the sport. He recently obtained a Master of Business Administration degree to help broaden his expertise.

“I certainly try to give my opinion as much as possible and some people might say too much,” said Gushue. “I just think the experience I have – the 20 years of curling, the business background, my MBA – all that stuff can be a benefit when we have those discussions.

“Certainly when I see younger guys like (Matt) Dunstone or (Brendan) Bottcher, they haven’t been through some of the experiences our team has been through that we’ve learned from,” he added. “We want to share that, in how the game is run, whether it’s dealing with Curling Canada or the Grand Slam series or the WCF (World Curling Federation). 

“There’s lot of stuff that’s not perfect in our game and how you handle that or how you change that is where the experience part is a big key. You try to do as much as you can and leave the sport in a little better place than when you came in.”

Gushue was a bit of a rarity when he jumped from juniors to the senior ranks in 2001. Back then, it was more common for a young skip to serve an apprenticeship under the wing of an experienced veteran.

Being from Newfoundland and Labrador and with the provincial residency rules in place at the time, Gushue didn’t have that luxury.

“We were very limited,” he recalled. “I couldn’t hop on with a top five skip and learn.

“I did have those opportunities after a couple of years and for me it really became an issue of do I want to move to Alberta or do I want to move to Ontario to take up those opportunities? And I didn’t, quite honestly.

“I love where I’m from and I wanted to represent Newfoundland,” Gushue said. “If the residency rules were what they are now, we would have worked hard to bring in a bigger name, more experienced skip to help us through those first four or five years and help us learn because that’s one thing we missed.”

Now, the pendulum has swung away from the apprenticeship model, with young skips jumping from juniors straight to the grind of the tour.

“To be honest, I don’t think it’s a good thing,” Gushue said. “I would have really relished the chance to learn under one of those guys for a couple of years and I think it would have actually accelerated the learning curve and allow me to be more competitive earlier.

Brad Gushue’s career, by the numbers:

  • 22 Brier appearances
  • 6 Brier championships (2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024)
  • 1 world championship (2017)
  • 2 Winter Olympic appearances
  • 1 Olympic gold medal (2006), 1 bronze medal (2022)
  • 2 Canadian junior men’s championships (one as an alternate for John Morris’ team)
  • 2 world junior men’s championships (one as an alternate with Morris’ rink)
  • 14 Grand Slam of Curling titles
  • 2 Pinty’s Cup championships
  • 1 Canadian mixed doubles championship

“I mean, we won our first Brier when I was 36 years old,” he said. “I think that would have been a whole lot quicker if I had got some of those experiences earlier and more often.

“I encourage a lot of younger teams to go that (apprenticeship) route,” Gushue added. “There’s such a steep learning curve that when you come out on your own, it’s easy to get discouraged because you’re going to lose and you’re going to lose a lot.

“You’re going to have to take it on the chin until you learn some of the intricacies of playing out here on tour and playing against these top teams week in and week out.”

Gushue has made a commitment to continue playing through the current four-year cycle leading up to the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will be held in Italy.

After eight years with the same lineup, the Gushue rink made one change this season. Second Brett Gallant left for Alberta to join Bottcher’s rink and he was replaced by E. J. Harnden, formerly with Brad Jacobs’ team.

“I made a conscious decision after last year to commit to the these four years and beyond that, I have no idea,” Gushue said.

“I’ve certainly began the process of preparing for post-curling. From discussions I’ve had with others who have been through it, the ones who have been successful and happy have had something to fill that void.

“I want to make sure that if 2026 is my last year that I have something to transition into,” he said. “That was part of me getting my MBA last year, to allow for a few more opportunities post-curling.”

Brad Gushue: Why he loves curling

“I love the small team aspect of it,” veteran skip Brad Gushue said. “I played a lot of individual sports when I was younger and I like that part but curling just has this team aspect but still the individual part. You’re highlighted when you’re throwing the rock, it’s really your moment. 

“The strategy part is what I really like,” he said. “You could go out and they could out-curl you by 5 or 10 per cent but you can beat them if you play the right shots and the right strategy. I think those are some of the things we need to focus on as we try to grow the sport.

“People who watch it love trying to work through the way the end is going to go. When you watch hockey or soccer, it’s much more reactionary. There’s not that strategy that we have in our sport.”

And what makes the sport even more enjoyable for viewers is that the teams will discuss the shots they’re going to play right in front of their opposition – and even predict what the opposition will do in response. It’s not like Tom Brady walks to the line of scrimmage and then tells the defence “OK, I’m going to throw a pass and it’s going to be to this receiver and he’s going to run out and turn left after five yards.”

“When we go out and play a team like (Kevin) Koe or (Niklas) Edin or (Bruce) Mouat, you’re not pulling too many fast ones over on them,” Gushue said. “We’re probably a little more liberal in what we say because we know full well that they know. 

“If we’re going to play a team fresh out of juniors or maybe an inexperienced team, we’ll probably whisper a little more because there’s a better chance they might not pick up on the sequence that should happen.”

Brad Gushue: Newfoundland and Labrador’s unofficial tourism ambassador

Anyone who knows Brad Gushue knows he’s passionate about his home province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

So we asked Brad to take on the role of tourism director and tell people what makes Newfoundland such a special place, along with the best spots to visit.

“Number one, it’s just the people, particularly outport Newfoundland outside St. John’s,” he said. “Just the friendliness and how people will welcome you into their home after having known you for an hour.” 

Walk down the streets of the province, he noted, and people will have a smile on their faces and ask how you’re doing. “When I walk down the streets of Toronto,” he said, “it’s head down, focus, walk fast. When I go away that’s something I miss – the friendliness everyone has.”

“The food is incredible,” Gushue said. “We have awesome restaurants. Seafood is kind of what we’re known for.

“If you’re going down for a good time, George Street in St. John’s is obviously pretty good. Water Street and Duckworth have some incredible restaurants. You can have a wonderful meal and a few drinks and go up and down the streets of downtown.”

As for places to visit, Gushue rhymed off a few:

  • Gros Morne National Park on the west side of Newfoundland north of Corner Brook;
  • Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America, just outside St. John’s;
  • Signal Hill in St. John’s, site of the first trans-Atlantic wireless communication in 1901;
  • the Gander airport, where a chunk of steel beam from the World Trade Centre’s South Tower is on display, in recognition of Gander’s role in sheltering American air passengers during the 9/11 tragedy.

Brad Gushue takes Runback’s trivia challenge

Here at Runback, we have a trivia question that almost always stumps the audience and wins us a lot of bets. Brad Gushue, are you ready? As a Newfoundlander, we’re counting on you to get this one right.

Not counting the United States, what is the next closest country to Canada?

“Hmmm, not counting the United States? It would have to be Russia,” Gushue said.

Oh no, Brad, you’ve got to get this one right.

“Greenland?” he said, with not much confidence.

Brad, you’re from Newfoundland. Hint, hint.

“Ohhhhh. France. Jesus, yeah, France,” he said with a grin. “Thanks for the tip.”

He’s correct. Not counting the U.S., France is the next closest country to Canada, thanks to the small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, located less than 20 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland’s southern Burin peninsula.

The 6,000 residents of the islands are French citizens and use the euro as their currency.

Oddly enough, Gushue has never visited the islands.

“It’s a challenge to get to,” he said. It’s about a four-hour drive from St. John’s to the tip of the peninsula “and then there’s the ferry ride.”

Funny enough, Brad didn’t know it at the time—but Runback had already teamed up with the Saint-Pierre et Miquelon Curling Club to design and produce their jackets.

In the picture, Montreal based skip Antoine Sambin slides out as he prepares to curl under the Saint-Pierre et Miquelon banner.