BEIJING—If there’s one thing you don’t have trouble finding at these pandemic Olympics, it’s a cleaning crew. Hazmat-suited disinfection patrols are around every corner.
But in the seventh end of Friday’s Olympic bronze-medal game in men’s curling, Canada’s Brad Gushue suddenly found himself in search of a mop. And considering this has to be in the conversation as the most sanitized sporting event in world history, it was going shockingly poorly.
“He gave me a hard no,” Gushue said.
The Canadian skip was speaking of the umpire’s response to Team Canada’s request to have the ice re-swept on account of accumulating debris. Canada was down 5-4 to the defending gold medalists from the United States at the time, in part, Gushue later made the case, because no less than four of Canada’s rocks had been thrown off their intended path by what’s known as a pick — a foreign object sitting atop the ice. In this case, the suspected problem were bits of foam that had been peeling away from the sheet’s cushioned sideboards.
Perhaps you could understand the umpire’s reticence, given Gushue and his teammates were literally carrying around brooms. But Gushue, to his credit, persisted. And eventually, after Gushue got buy-in from his American competitors, and then repeatedly pushed to have the situation remedied, a large mop emerged. The dastardly foam flecks were hauled away via dust pan. And Canada promptly staged a late-game rally en route to an 8-5 victory.
“When (the debris) was cleaned up it gave me peace of mind,” Gushue said. “Once that cleaning happened, for me, I got a lot more comfortable out there. And hopefully our whole team did.”
“Comfortable” probably isn’t a great way to describe Team Gushue’s state of being at these Olympics. Thursday night’s semifinal loss to Sweden’s Niklas Edin meant that, thanks to Canada’s failure to make the playoffs in mixed doubles and women’s curling, these would be the first Olympics since the sport became a five-ringed fixture in 1998 in which at least one Canadian rink didn’t play for a gold medal. Gushue, who won gold in Turin in 2006, called the tournament the “worst” week his rink has ever endured. And yet, he said, he was proud they persevered.
“It was quite clear to any curling fan we weren’t at our best this week,” Gushue said. “It’s not about just how you handle yourself when you’re playing well. It’s about how you handle yourself when you’re struggling… Quite proud to get on the podium.”
If the pride is more than justified, Gushue’s medal won’t stop suggestions that Canadian curling is selling its athletes short on the Olympic stage. While nobody doubts Canada’s deep talent pool, a compelling case can be made that the entrenched interests of a sport that prioritizes its big-money TV events over everything aren’t exactly putting Canada’s curling Olympians in the best position to succeed.
The conversation is wide-ranging and complex. But Gushue, for instance, said he’s been making the case going back to his first trip to the Olympics 16 years ago that Canada ought to hold its Olympic trials far earlier. As it is, Canadian rinks get something in the range of a couple of months to prepare for the Games, which is laughably scant lead time compared to, say, the two men’s rinks from Sweden and Britain scheduled to battle for the gold medal Saturday.
Olympic trials held in the springtime instead of around Christmastime, Gushue said, would put Canada “on a more level playing field with teams like (Sweden and Britain), who’ve known for a long time they’re coming here… Whether that happens or not, I don’t know. I’ve been pushing for that for 16 years.”
It’s a good thing Gushue’s push for a mop-up on Sheet B went better than his push for change. Certainly the US team was gracious about Gushue’s debris-based quibbles.
“It would be weirder if we said, ‘No, you can’t mop the ice,’ ” said US second Matt Hamilton. “At the end of the day, this is a gentlemen’s game. If they feel like they’re a little bit uncomfortable with the ice, I don’t want an excuse that we beat them because the ice was bad … Caps off to Team Gushue. They were the better team today, for sure.”
The better team, despite not being at their best.
“It’s the toughest game I’ve ever had to play, because you want to give 100 per cent, but you don’t have 100 per cent. It’s just not possible. You’re still reeling from (the semifinal loss),” Gushue said. “You give it what you have. But unfortunately what you have is not a full tank of gas. I put everything into that game. Absolutely everything. And I’m tired mentally, physically and emotionally.”