LETHBRIDGE, Alta. – It was a win that will go down in the history books. 

Playing a man down, Brad Gushue and his Wild Card 1 rink from St. John’s, Nfld., are Canadian curling champions for the fourth time.

With veteran third Mark Nichols sidelined for the playoffs after a positive COVID-19 test on Friday, Gushue, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker defeated Alberta’s Team Kevin Koe, 9-8, in a thrilling extra end final at the Tim Hortons Brier Sunday night at Enmax Centre. 

“This is for you, Mark,” Gushue told the cameras immediately following the win. 

The drama in the 10th end was palpable with Team Koe scoring a deuce to stay alive. In the extra, Gushue made an open takeout for the single point and the once-in-a-lifetime victory.

No team in Brier history has captured the prestigious Tankard with just three players. 

“You know, what the three of us pulled off here the last few days, man oh man, it’s pretty crazy,” said Gushue. “I never thought a team of three could go through a gauntlet of Koe, Bottcher and Flasch in the Brier playoffs. That’s crazy.” 

Like he did for the team’s previous three games, Nichols watched the championship final isolated in his Lethbridge hotel room. A quick glance at Nichols’ Twitter feed Sunday night and one could conclude watching your team battle in a Canadian final is much more stressful then actually playing in it. 

The 42-year-old, who led all vices with an 88 per cent shooting percentage this week, appeared to crush more than one Honey Cruller throughout the game just to get through the night. 

“The bad thing now is that we got to wait a couple days before we can even just embrace him,” said Gushue. “And give him a hug and celebrate this. Which is unfortunate because he was a big part of it. We won eight games in a row, never lost a game when he was in the lineup. Even though we pulled this off, we’re a better team with Mark.”

About an hour before Friday’s page seeding game against Brendan Bottcher, Team Gushue announced on Twitter that Nichols had received a positive COVID-19 test and was done for the tournament. Gushue, who has played with Nichols for a total of 22 seasons, called the loss of Nichols “a gut punch on top of a kick in the groin,” after the team took so many precautions to avoid this situation.  

On Saturday, Gushue compared a three-man curling team to trying to win a hockey game while on the penalty kill for 60 minutes. Despite the uphill battle, Team Gushue reeled off victories over heavyweights in Colton Flasch, Brendan Bottcher and Koe to stand atop the podium on Sunday night in front of a capacity crowd.

Now Team Gushue, who are fresh off winning bronze at last month’s Beijing Olympics, will wear the Maple Leaf once again, this time representing Canada at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Las Vegas from April 2-10.

With another Olympic quadrennial wrapping up, the futures of many elite-level teams are up in the air, including Gushue’s rink. Gallant says if this season is in fact the end for Team Gushue as we know it, he’s glad they now have the chance to go out together. 

"When Mark got sick, I thought it would be a really tough way to end eight years, without him on the ice," an emotional Gallant told the media. “So, it means a lot that if this is our last season, that we’re going to go out with all four of us, side by side. Mark’s one of my best friends and I’m really looking forward to getting on the ice with him again.”

The St. John’s rink, who had previously won Tankards in 2017, 2018 and 2020, have said all week that their expectations were lower for this year’s Brier after just finishing an exhausting Olympic journey.

“It was a draining last couple days,” said Gallant. “But, I’m definitely on a high right now, this is exciting. I can’t believe we got that done. Yeah, I’ll be on Cloud 9 for a few more days.”