LETHBRIDGE, Alta. – The page playoff matchups are set at the Tim Hortons Brier.

The usual suspects own three of the four spots with 2022 Olympic bronze medallist Brad Gushue, 2021 Brier winner Brendan Bottcher and four-time Canadian champion Kevin Koe all making the second weekend. The surprise of the week has been Colton Flasch and his Saskatchewan rink as they will round out the page playoff field in Lethbridge.

Alberta will take on Canada in the 1 vs. 2 game after their wins in the page seeding round Friday night while Saskatchewan will take on Wild Card 1 in the 3 vs. 4 contest. Both games go on Saturday with the semi-final and final set for Sunday.

Let’s take a closer look at the matchups and all the storylines that set up to be a fun weekend of elite level curling an the Enmax Centre.

The last rink standing will wear the Maple Leaf at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Las Vegas from April 2-10.

 

SK (Flasch) vs. WC1 (Gushue)

3 vs. 4 Game – Saturday at 3:30pm ET on TSN 1, TSN Direct and the TSN App

If Gushue and the B’ys from The Rock are going to capture their fourth Brier Tankard since 2017, they’re going to have to do it a man down.

About an hour before Friday’s page seeding clash against Bottcher, Gushue’s rink announced on Twitter that third Mark Nichols is done for the tournament after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier in the day.

“Despite taking the necessary precautions, Mark Nichols unfortunately tested positive for COVID-19 today,” the release said. “Mark is experiencing mild symptoms and is currently isolating. Due to event protocols, Mark will no longer be able to compete in the Tim Hortons Brier. The team will play the rest of the event with three players. We wish Mark all the best and a speedy recovery.”

Gushue, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker will now finish off the event by themselves as they did not bring an alternate with them to Lethbridge this week.

The first test will come Saturday afternoon in the 3 vs. 4-game against Saskatchewan’s Colton Flasch after they dropped a close 4-3 decision to Team Bottcher Friday night. Of course, playing with only three players comes with some massive disadvantages, including only having one sweeper.

“We’ve done everything we can in the last few months to avoid this and we’re one of the only teams here that were wearing masks and doing all this stuff. And we get caught in the playoffs when we were playing great,” said Gushue after the loss. “It’s a gut punch on top of a kick in the groin.”

Team Gushue, who are fresh off winning bronze at the Winter Olympics in Beijing last month, were the only rink in Lethbridge to get through round-robin play with a perfect 8-0 record as Wild Card 1.

Gushue has said all week that his expectations are lower compared to Briers of year’s past because of the recent Olympic exhaustion, but the results paint a different picture. The St. John’s foursome had yet to lose entering Friday's action with their skipper shooting a Brier-best 90 per cent. Nichols was best among vices at 88 per cent.

The future of Gushue’s team is very much up in the air, so going out on top would a dream ending for this group who have been together for the past eight years. And playing shorthanded, it might just be their toughest task yet.

On the other side of the sheet, it will be Saskatchewan’s Team Flasch, who have been one of the more intriguing teams at this year’s Brier.

After dropping a tough 9-8 decision to Alberta and his former skip Koe in the opener last Friday night, Flasch have been zoned in, winning eight of his next 10 games.

They’ve defeated their provincial rivals, Team Matt Dunstone, in the round-robin finale Thursday to earn a tiebreaker and then they beat them again in said tiebreaker to make the playoffs.

In the biggest surprise of the week, they thumped Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs Friday afternoon in the playoffs, 10-3 in just seven ends, as Flasch shot an impressive 88 per cent. They lost to Team Koe, 7-2, in the page seeding round.

Flasch says he’s starting to feel like he’s in the zone.

“Oh yeah. The draw weight has been there all week and now I’m hitting a little better. It’s been good,” he said after beating Jacobs earlier Friday.

Flasch, a construction company owner from Saskatoon, played second for Team Koe in Alberta for two seasons, highlighted by capturing his first Brier Tankard in 2019. Following a disappointing run as Team Canada at the 2020 nationals, Flasch was cut in favour of John Morris.

The 31-year-old was able to build his very own Saskatchewan-based team after Catlin Schneider was let go from Team Dunstone and the Marsh twins – Kevin and Daniel – found themselves without a team after their skip Kirk Muyres joined Dunstone’s rink.

Their first season together in 2020-21 was more or less a wash due to COVID-19. This season they’ve played in nine events, highlighted by an appearance in the Vesta Energy Curling Classic final and a win over Dunstone in the provincial championship last month. They also went 4-2 at the Home Hardware Curling Pre-Trials.

This is Flasch’s sixth career Brier, but first as a skip. He says he learned a lot from his short time with Koe.

“Playing with Kevin Koe I’ve learnt over the years that you don’t have to be too good too early. And learn the ice. Every game even if you lose, make sure you learn something from that game. Move forward. We’ve been doing a great job of that,” said Flasch. “It definitely helped playing with Kevin.

“These games are lot easier after playing in them and knowing what it takes to win. Just all the knowledge and being comfortable in these games helps as well.”

Schneider says that Koe-like calm presence is needed in a skip since the pressures of the position are so intense.

“I mean it’s nerve-wracking. You’re the guy who has to make the final shot in front of a ton of people, in front of all of Canada and North America watching, right,” said Schneider. “So, it’s not the easiest thing to do and people who haven’t been there don’t quite understand that feeling. So, my job is to just calm him down and relax, get him in the right head space and bring his confidence up because he’s a great player.”

There’s skip pressure and there’s the pressure of bringing home the Tankard to Saskatchewan. Of course, the curling crazed prairie province hasn’t won the Canadian men’s curling championship since 1980 when Rick Folk, Ron Mills, Tim Wilson and Jim Wilson stood atop the podium.

Dunstone was close the past couple years with back-to-back semi-final appearances but wasn’t able to get over the hump and snap the 40-year plus drought.

Flasch and company still have a long way to go to accomplish that feat.

“Oh, I think they’re very hungry. I’ve heard the question about 100 times this week. So, I’m not here to necessarily win for Saskatchewan, I am obviously, but I’m here to win for our team and if that happens great.”

 

CA (Bottcher) vs. AB (Koe)

1 vs. 2 Game – Saturday at 6:30pm ET on TSN 1/5, TSN Direct and the TSN App

Saturday’s evening feature pits the defending champions looking to make their fifth straight appearance in the Brier final against a squad stacked with talent playing in their last Brier together.

It’s also the Battle of Alberta and a rematch of last year’s final. So, safe to say it will be a good one.

We know Bottcher and Team Canada are going to be hard to beat in the playoffs as they’ve proven in the past quadrennial.

Despite a mid-season lineup change, cutting Darren Moulding in favour of alternate Patrick Janssen, Bottcher and his team haven’t missed a beat in Lethbridge. They went 7-1 in the preliminary round with their only loss coming to Koe, the team they beat in the final last year inside the Calgary bubble for their first national title.

Bottcher, 30, is shooting a solid 85 per cent while Janssen has fit in well, also shooting 85 per cent, which is fourth best among thirds.

It seems like whatever you throw this team’s way, they find a way to deflect it. Last Saturday night in their second game of the event, Bottcher and company were most definitely the “road team” despite wearing Team Canada colours and being from Edmonton, just five hours north of Lethbridge. That was because they were facing New Brunswick’s James Grattan with hometown favourite Moulding in their lineup.

There were plenty of cheers for Moulding and just as many heckles for Bottcher, but that didn’t faze the unflappable skip as Team Bottcher slid to a 6-4 win.

“I thought it was a curling knowledgeable crowd and ultimately it was always going to be a battle,” a relaxed Bottcher said after the game. “So, I guess I came into this game expecting it and I was actually glad it lived up to that hype. It was a good venue here tonight.”

We know that this is the final year for Koe, BJ Neufeld, John Morris and Ben Hebert with the foursome slated to disband in some form by season’s end.

Three-time Brier champ Morris, 43, is expected to step away from the men’s game and maybe only focus on playing mixed doubles going forward for the foreseeable future.

In Lethbridge, Team Koe has not looked like a rink that is set to break up.

Their 47-year-old skipper is second among skips in shooting percentage at 87 per cent as he’s searching for a history-making fifth Brier Tankard.

As we’ve come to know over the years, there’s Tour Kevin Koe and then there’s Brier Kevin Koe. In nine prior appearances at nationals, the native of Calgary has made seven finals, winning four of them.

“He’s amazing at the Brier. His record speaks for that alone,” Hebert told TSN.ca this week. “He cranks it up as the event he really cares about. He likes to peak at these events and I like the way he’s playing right now. It looks like he’s doing it again.”

The winner advances straight to Sunday evening’s final while the loser has another chance to dance and will play the winner of the 3 vs. 4 game in the semi-final.