Curling

Gushue opens last Montana’s Brier against former champion Menard of Quebec on TSN

By
TSN.ca Staff

Published: 

Brad Gushue’s final opening game of the Canadian men’s curling championship takes place Friday night in his hometown.

The 2026 Montana’s Brier kicks off in St. John’s, Nfld., in what will be the last Brier of the skip’s legendary career after announcing in September the 2025-26 curling campaign would be his last.

Gushue and his team of third Mark Nichols, second Brendan Bottcher and lead Geoff Walker will take on the Quebec champions, Team Jean-Michel Menard, in the feature game.

You can watch the action LIVE from Mary Brown’s Centre tonight at 6pm ET/3pm PT on TSN1/5, TSN.ca and the TSN App.

This year’s Brier marks just the the third time the event will take place in St. John’s with the most recent occurring in the 2017 when Gushue finally won his first Brier Tankard in dramatic, career-defining fashion.

Nine years later, the 45-year-old Gushue has won a total of six Brier titles, the most by any skip in history.

Nothing will beat the feeling of winning his first, said Gushue.

“It’s going to be hard to top 2017,” he told TSN’s Bob Weeks in a recent interview. “The feeling in my body when we made that shot, it wasn’t even the excitement of winning, it was the roar. You could fill your insides rumbling. It was so loud.”

Winning Brier No. 7 this week won’t be an easy task for Gushue and company.

Team Gushue hasn’t been the same since parting ways with E.J. Harnden in the early portion of the 2024-25 season, replacing him with former skip Bottcher.

They are 17-15 season and haven’t won a bonspiel since the 2023-24 campaign.

As a result, Gushue’s rink has fallen to 14th in Canada and 32nd in the world

Gushue’s had a nice week at last year’s Brier in Kelowna, dropping the semifinal to Team Brad Jacobs, the 2026 Olympic champions, who are also set to compete in St. John’s as Team Canada.

Gushue, an Olympic, Canadian and world champion, will go down as one of the greatest curlers of all-time and has a chance to make a run on The Rock with the home crowd behind him.

On the other side of the sheet, Menard is also playing in the final Brier of his career.

Menard won his lone Brier Tankard in 2006, beating Ontario’s Team Glenn Howard in the final from Regina.

The 50-year-old teamed up with Felix Asselin ahead of last season and qualified for his first Brier in almost a decade, helping Team Quebec post a 4-4 record in Kelowna.

Team Menard defended their provincial title in January amid a truly dominant campaign. The foursome owns a fantastic 43-5 record, highlighted by five bonspiel wins.

Menard calls the game while Asselin throws skip rocks.

Team Gushue and Team Jacobs are the favourites to claim two of the three playoff spots in Pool A with the likes of Team Menard, Ontario’s Team Jayden King and Saskatchewan’s Team Kelly Knapp battling for the final spot.

Other action sees Newfoundland and Labrador’s Team Nathan Young taking on Nunavut’s Team Derek Samagalski, Ontario’s Team King battling Nova Scotia’s Kendal Thompson and Canada’s Team Jacobs battling Prince Edward Island’s Team Tyler Smith.