Curling

Uneasy lies the head that wears the Olympic crown. Especially for Brad Gushue recently.

Gushue and his Newfoundland team might be the 2006 Olympic men's curling champions, but they had to scrub their way to victory in their third game of the Grey Power World Cup of Curling at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga yesterday.

They lost their first two games of the tournament, sending rocks every which way but loose.

Fortunately, Gushue said, the team, consisting of Ryan Fry of St. John's, Mark Nichols of Labrador City, and Jamie Korab of St. John's, finally found its curling legs for the final four ends of the third game yesterday afternoon, squeezing past Ralph Stoeckli of Switzerland to win 6-5, after winning a ninth end to break a tie.

How would the Olympic champion rank his game right now?

"Horrible," Gushue said candidly.

"Out of 10, I might give it a two. None of us is playing very well. We're struggling ... and the ice is a bit tricky."

The problem, Gushue figures, is that he and his crew haven't been able to find ice on which to practice recently. Their curling ice in St. John's was taken out last April, and it was installed again just last Friday. They had to fly to Halifax to practise a couple of times.

"We were practising on some pretty bad ice for a couple of days, and then the last couple of days, we got on some good ice," he said. "I don't think we're as sharp as some of the other teams, because we haven't had the practice. We've been playing events all year. That's how we're getting ready.

"I think in the next couple of weeks, getting more rocks and getting more practice will help straighten the game out."

Although Gushue's team seemed to get off to a good start this year in its first four tournaments, the skip said in reality, they got lucky and weren't really playing well at all.

"We seemed to make timely shots, and got a couple of breaks," he said. "We haven't improved our game and the other teams seem to be playing a little bit better than they were at the beginning."

On Wednesday night, Team Gushue was defeated by John Shuster's team from the United States 4-3, and yesterday morning, the Newfoundlanders were blasted by Andy Kapp of Germany 7-1.

So once again, Gushue will find himself approaching an Olympics as an underdog, just like he did before Turin, when Randy Ferbey and Kevin Martin were supposed to reign supreme for Canada at the Olympic trials.

"Neither one of them made the playoffs and neither one had winning records," Gushue said. "The trial is a different beast. It's such high pressure."

Gushue is such an underdog, he still has to qualify to get to the trials. Four teams of eight have already prequalified: Martin of Edmonton, Glenn Howard of Coldwater, Ont., Kevin Koe of Edmonton and Ferbey, also of Edmonton. (The trials begin in Edmonton on Dec. 6.)

Gushue will have to fight 11 other teams to win one of the final four spots at a pre-Olympic trial in Prince George, B.C., next month. That won't be an easy task either, he said.

If he does get to the trials, he figures whoever is hot during the week will win all the cards. Howard, and Martin, who have proved to be the top two teams in the world in recent years, are beatable, he said. Gushue has defeated Martin twice this year, and Howard as well.

"I think right now, Kevin and Glenn have all the pressure," Gushue said. "They've played so well over the last couple of years, and everybody expects them to win. Even though we've won before and we had a decent start to the year, I don't think anybody is going to list us as a favourite."

Four years ago, leading up to the Turin Olympics, Gushue played horribly, too, he admitted. "This is probably a good sign - that we're struggling," he said. "I think our team is pretty solid. I think once we get some ... good solid practice, we're going to be there at the end of the week at the trials."

The mantle of being Olympic champion hasn't changed Gushue's life in a major way. He hoped for a lot, but it didn't materialize. "We got some good support [endorsements]," Gushue said. "Unfortunately, it wasn't the support of some of the other athletes that won gold. But I think that's a lot the product of where we're from.

"Newfoundland doesn't have a lot of big companies, and it's hard for a company out in Calgary to get a bunch of guys from Newfoundland to endorse stuff."

Gushue's goal this year? It's Olympics or bust, sponsors or not.

"Nothing less will be satisfactory," he said bravely, then reconsidered.

"If we don't win the trials, and we win the Brier, that might be okay, too. We'd take that."