Gushue Is Not The Favourite
I’m seeing a few Canadian media previews of the world men’s championship that mention Canada’s “path to gold” or “gold rush” to the title.
I guess that’s clickbait. Because these guys should be smart enough to know that Niklas Edin’s Swedish machine are the favourites to win.
And as they’d be winning their fifth such world crown in a row, I’ll go a step further and declare the Swedes are the overwhelming favourites.
If I were Edin’s coach, I’d gather those Canadian media stories, print them out at size 72 font and tape them all over the hotel rooms … and in the team courtesy vehicle … and in the locker room at Ottawa’s TD Place arena.
Edin and his mates don’t need any extra motivation. They live for the world championships. They love beating Canada.
They are already super-motivated to try and beat Gushue and his b’ys on Canada’s home ice on Friday night (nice drawmaking, WCF) and again in the playoffs and then, poetically perhaps, in the championship final to get that fourth consecutive title.
Of course, if I was Edin’s coach, the team clearly ain’t that interested in having a coach at all. They’d be doing me a favour, offering me a junket to Ottawa and a prime viewing spot on the bench.
The point is that these guys don’t need anything from anyone ever again, including a coach.
They played half of this past season without a skip, when Edin was injured and recovering from surgery, and didn’t miss a beat.
They’ve won gold, silver and bronze at the Olympic Games, and countless world and European titles and medals.
They’ve even added more Grand Slam titles in recent years.
And now Edin is back with a bioNik knee and wants to drop it in Canada’s face yet again.
And it’s not just the Swedes. Scotland’s Bruce Mouat is only improving, Yannick’s Schwaller’s Swiss outfit is a great mixture of veterans and youth, and I wouldn’t want to run into Italy’s Joel Retornaz—or his giant third and second players—as we get closer to Cortina.
What’s interesting is that a cursory look at online chatter seems to leave Canadian sport media types out on a limb with their Gushue gold hype.
In other words, the fans aren’t echoing this.
They’re full of hope and determination, of course, but few Canucks are calling that Team Gushue will actually beat Team Edin and win the title.
Perhaps it’s the state of Canadian curling at the moment.
Gold is elusive at all levels and in all disciplines.
There’s now a Scotsman in the house, preparing to swing a big stick at how everything’s been done in this country over the past decades.
You can’t blame Canuck curling fans for hedging.
Even PointsBet, the official Sports Betting Partner of Curling Canada, is dead silent on all things curling on this Friday before the men’s worlds begins.
So that’s my thoughts on this week’s sport media curling clickbait.
But did I engage in a little clickbaiting myself, with a trumpeted GUSHUE NOT THE FAVOURITE headline?