Brad Gushue will be the first to point out that the last week or so hasn’t been all that pleasant for the skip and his team, ever since they decided on — and announced — their new look at second.
Yes, Gushue was well aware that making an in-season personnel change would cause a stir in the curling world, but as the six-time Brier champion puts it, “it’s been busier than I’d like, and more attention than I’d like.”
Not all nice attention, either.
Last Thursday, Team Gushue, winners of a third straight Brier title earlier this year, announced it was parting ways with second E.J. Harnden. Gushue named former skip Brendan Bottcher to throw second stones on Tuesday. Bottcher, who led Alberta to a Brier title in 2021, is one of the game’s best shot-makers, and he’ll soon join the world No. 3-ranked Team Gushue, which is also No. 1 in Canada.
“We all want to enjoy the game as much as we possibly can, and we want to give ourselves the best chance to get back to the Olympics,” Gushue, 44, said for the reason behind the change.
The 2006 Olympic gold medallist spoke to Sportsnet over the phone Thursday from Sault. Ste. Marie, Ont., which is not only the site of the ongoing Henderson Metal Fall Classic, but is also Harnden’s hometown. Bottcher isn’t playing with Team Gushue this week because he’s competing in mixed doubles, but he’ll make his debut in the No. 2 spot later this month. Adam Casey, who played with Team Gushue from 2011-14, is filling in and will also join as the fifth for the upcoming Pan Continental Curling Championships.
“For me, personally, it’s been challenging,” Gushue said of the last few days, as the team’s decision was made and announced. “A lot of mixed emotions, a lot of discussion, a lot of time and energy and mental energy spent on this whole process. I’m looking forward to getting to the other side. Getting back to just curling and focusing on the things that I want to do.”
Team Gushue hasn’t had a lot of turnover in the last decade — the skip points out Bottcher is just the sixth player to join in the last 14 years — and his addition created quite a reaction among fans in the curling world.
“Certainly since this announcement, we’ve seen a huge spike in the negativity, and just some of the meanness, too,” Gushue said of the unwelcome action on the team’s social media accounts, which he said had been very positive in the last bunch of years, something he acknowledged is unusual but quite nice.
“I reached out to [Bottcher], I was wondering how he was taking it. And very much like me, he tries not to pay too much attention to it,” Gushue said. “I think both of us understand that this will fade in a couple of days. And as long as we enjoy playing with each other and have some success on the curling ice, I think this will fade off and be a distant memory sooner rather than later.”
Team Gushue features fixtures in the other three positions with the skip, lead Geoff Walker and third Mark Nichols. And though letting go of Harnden was nothing personal, Gushue said, the team is still the talk of Canadian men’s curling during what has been a busy stretch of shakeups in the last three or so weeks. As Marc Kennedy, who throws third for skip Brad Jacobs, put it: “Wild times in Canadian men’s curling.”
It all started when Kevin Koe cut ties with second Jacques Gauthier, and his team then played a pair of events short-handed. Skip Aaron Sluchinski left his team to join Koe’s to fill that gap. Gushue added Bottcher. And that leaves Gauthier and Harnden without teams (for now).
“I think what you’re seeing is teams looking around and just looking at how they can get better,” said Kennedy, who won Olympic gold in 2010 with Kevin Martin at the helm. Kennedy, 42, said age is certainly a factor, as some of the older guys in the game try to get the best team possible assembled to take what could be one last shot at the Olympics, with trials a little more than a year away to determine who’ll represent Canada at the 2026 Winter Games in Italy.
Back in 2022, Kennedy, second Brent Gallant and lead Ben Hebert joined forces with Bottcher, and yet the team that was No. 1 in the world for a stretch last season — but couldn’t get past the semifinal of the Brier — decided to go a different direction with their skip this off-season, and brought in Jacobs.
“I have nothing but really good things to say about Brendan Bottcher — he worked extremely hard, he was a great teammate, he’s a good friend of mine,” Kennedy said. “I think, as a team, we just decided that he was probably a couple of years away from being the skip that we needed him to be in order to win the big events right now, and so we made the difficult decision to make a change.”
Teaming up with Jacobs, who led Canada to Olympic gold in 2014, left Bottcher without a men’s team. Bottcher trains in Edmonton (as does Walker) and Gushue said Bottcher reached out at the end of last season to discuss the potential of joining forces. Gushue said his team wanted to see how this season started, with a hope that it would be able to get more out of each member, and also see a spike in on-ice enjoyment.
“And, to be honest, after the first three events, we realized that it hadn’t improved or really hadn’t worked out as well as we had hoped. And, really, from our perspective, this was kind of the last window to make a change,” Gushue said. “We felt like 13 or 14 months was more than enough time to kind of get the team going and go through all the learning curves that you’re going to have when you bring in a new player.”
At a new position, too. Gushue doesn’t believe Bottcher has ever played second.
“Not that I’m aware of, but it’s not as big a concern for me,” he said with a laugh, pointing out many skips have moved to other positions and thrived (see: Kerri Einarson’s skip-filled team, which won four straight Scotties titles). “There is a learning curve to it and that’s why, for us, if we were gonna do this, we felt now was our last chance.”
Although Kennedy said he didn’t have Bottcher joining Team Gushue as a second on his bingo card, it’s not a shock given the incredible shot-making ability Bottcher brings to the table.
The 32-year-old used that ability to lead Alberta to a national title three years ago, and then in December 2021, his team made an in-season decision to let go of long-time third Darren Moulding. The team announced Moulding was stepping away “for personal reasons,” and Moulding fired back that he was actually cut, that the statement was “BS.” Bottcher and Team Canada were then booed at the 2022 Brier in Lethbridge in their home province.
Later that year, at the start of a new Olympic cycle, Kennedy joined forces with Bottcher.
“I will defend Brendan and his character and who he is to anybody. All the negativity that comes on social media, he’s done a really good job at ignoring it — and it’s absolutely unfair, everything he’s gone through from that perspective,” Kennedy said. Added the two-time world champion: “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my curling career, was to part ways with Brendan.”
In the last couple of days, Gushue said more fans who were unsure at first seem to be coming around to the idea of Bottcher’s addition.
“I think people understand how it makes more sense than the original, I guess, shock,” he said.
With Walker and Bottcher now able to train together in Edmonton, Bottcher can work with Walker on the sweeping aspect of the game, which will be new to the former skip. Bottcher is willing to put in the work. Gushue said one of the first things Bottcher told him after he reached out about joining the team was, “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help this team win.”
Bottcher will debut with Gushue as Team Canada at the Pan Continental Curling Championships, starting Oct. 27. Team Gushue is the defending champion.
“I think once we get beyond the Pan Continental, it’ll be a little more normal,” the skip said, as far as all the attention around his team goes. “But to get to that point, we’ve still got a few weeks to go.”
Hey, a lot can happen in the curling world in a couple of weeks to shift or offset that attention.
“I’ll tell you, having E.J. on the sidelines is gonna make a few teams wonder if they can make themselves better by bringing E.J. on their team,” Kennedy said with a laugh. “It’s kind of that domino effect.”
Few know if, when and where other dominoes will fall, but if you ask Kennedy, one thing is certain about Team Gushue, with the addition of Bottcher.
“They’re going to be as strong as they’ve ever been,” he said. “There’s no question about that.”