Kevin Koe, Matt Dunstone win their first Brier playoff games

Manitoba’s Matt Dunstone is on to the second round of playoffs at the Montana’s Brier.

ST. JOHN’S — Brad Gushue recovered from a blunder to stay in contention at the Canadian men’s championship and extend his curling career Friday.

The six-time champion attempting to win a record seventh in his hometown, and in what he says is his last Brier, beat Ontario’s Jayden King 12-6 in a playoff game.

Up 5-4 coming home in an earlier playoff game against Matt Dunstone, Gushue hogged his final rock to leave the Manitoban an opening for the winning shot.

Gushue, third Mark Nichols, second Brendan Bottcher and lead Geoff Walker were firmly in control of their evening game against King by the seventh end when they scored three for an 8-4 lead. King shook hands after Gushue scored another four in the ninth.

“We’re getting down to the nitty-gritty here,” Gushue said. “There’s not going to be too many games. Once we lose, we are done, so trying to enjoy every moment.

“That was one thing I kind of struggled with a little bit in that game is that emotion and thinking ‘if we don’t win this one, that’s the last one.’ I’ve got to figure out a way to get that out of my head tomorrow, but it’s probably something I’m going to have to deal with.”

Gushue’s road to one last Brier title remains long in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, where he won his first in 2017.

He meets reigning Olympic champion Brad Jacobs in an elimination playoff Saturday afternoon. The victor advances to Sunday’s semifinal.

Jacobs rebounded from an earlier 7-4 loss to Alberta’s Kevin Koe to defeat Manitoba’s Braden Calvert 7-3.

Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert took the load road to their Brier win last year after dropping the first playoff game and staving off elimination through four more games.

But the team’s mental and physical tank was running low after their run to an Olympic gold medal in Cortina, Italy less than two weeks ago.

“It’s really, really hard to muster up the energy to care. It really is,” Jacobs said with a dry chuckle.

“We’re doing everything we can to try and have energy. Just feeling the effects, mentally, physically, everything of the last six weeks.”

Meanwhile, Dunstone faces Koe in Saturday’s Page playoff between the top two seeds.

The winner earns an express ticket to Sunday’s final. The loser needs to win the semifinal to gain a rematch for the title.

Sunday’s winner of the Montana’s Brier represents Canada in the men’s world championship March 27 to April 4 in Ogden, Utah, and returns next year in Saskatoon wearing the Maple Leaf as defending champion.

Gushue will again have a full house at the Mary Brown’s Centre on his side for Saturday’s edition of the “Battle of the Brads.” Gushue doubled Jacobs 4-2 to go through pool play undefeated.

“This is Brad’s last Brier. They’re going to bring a lot of positive great energy for them and they’ll cheer our misses. We’re used to it,” Jacobs said.

“That game that we played just a couple days ago was a good warm-up for tomorrow.”

Four-time champion Koe had beaten Jacobs earlier on the strength of the skip’s risky takeout to score three in the seventh end. He gambled on a thin double takeout to produce a three-pointer.

Koe, 51, has turned back the clock in St. John’s after missing the playoffs the last two years.

The skip has carried his team at times when the middle of his lineup was outplayed by their opposing counterparts.

Koe was named the first all-star team skip Friday with a tournament-leading 89 per cent accuracy at his position.

“Kev is standing on his head out there,” said Tyler Tardi, who throws third stones. “Sometimes breaks come and they’re helpful, but sometimes your skip just plays out of his mind and that’s helpful, too. He’s back and it’s super cool to be on that side of it.”

Koe, who ranked second in all-time playoff wins with 17 behind Gushue (20), is a veteran of eight Brier finals.

He’s got there both winning and losing Page one-two games, as well as coming through the three-four game.

“I’ve played in every different playoff game there is here,” Koe said. “I know what it’s all about for sure, but your best chance of winning this is to win (Saturday’s) game, even though there’s no guarantees.”

Dunstone, who lost to Jacobs in last year’s Brier final, was ecstatic to pull out the win over Gushue with his final shot of their afternoon playoff game.

“Probably a moment I’ll remember for a very long time,” said Dunstone. “Ever since I knew this Brier was going to be in St. John’s, that’s the moment I wanted. Very cool.

“Curling, oftentimes there’s not many home and away teams, arenas, matchups, things like that. Today we had one. We were the obvious away team.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 6, 2026.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press