Gushue shoots for playoff spot in front of home crowd April 19, 2008 The young gold medalist from St. John's played in front of a good sized home-town crowd this morning. Brad Gushue, who captured the Olympic gold medal in 2006, was facing the Greg McAulay team from Brittish Columbia. McAulay won "come-back team of the year" earlier this week at the World Curling Tour award's ceremony. The winner of this game clinches a berth in the quarter finals. Gushue managed to hold McAulay to a single point in the first end and take the hammer into the second. With the hammer, Gushue picked up two points, much to the delight of the crowd. But that duce was quickly erased when Greg McAulay scored two in the third to regain a one poing lead.

Photo by Brent Hayden

Gushue posted another point in the fourth end to even things up, but then McAulay score single points in both the fifth and sixth end to take a 5-3 lead into the seventh.

In the seventh end, Gushue was looking to get some big points on the board to prevent this game from getting away. With Gushue's first stone, he was looking to run back his own guard onto McAulay's rock which was sitting on the four-foot. He made the difficult shot look, catching enough of the McAulay stone to remove it from the house. McAulay's final stone was called to be a draw in behind cover, looking for a steal. But the line was tight, and rubbed a guard out front, leaving Gushue a simple draw to the eight-foot for two points. With only a light sweep, Gushue's rock sailed comfortably into the house to pick up the duce and tie the game 5-5.

McAulay would have hammer in the eighth and final end, so Gushue was playing hard for the steal. After capitalizing on a miss by McAulay's second, Gushue's second, Chris Schille, drew a stone in behind cover. But it wasn't covered quite enough as McAulay made the double. With one rock still in the house, Gushue played guards for most of the end to try and protect it and sqeek out a steal. Greg McAulay's first skip stone was intended to freeze onto the shot Gushue rock, but the stone had some extra weight on it, keeping it too straight and sailing right past the rock. Gushue followed him right down with a draw of his own, biting the button of forcing McAulay to make a perfect draw for the win. McAulay's stone was perfect, grabbing just enough of the button to get the single point and advance to the quarter finals.

The final score was 6-5 for Greg McAulay.