Canadian Olympic gold medalist Brad Gushue of St. John’s, Newfoundland is announcing his retirement plans from high performance curling at the end of the 2025-26 season according to Gregory Strong of the Canadian Press. This will also have been the 20th anniversary Gushue won the gold medal at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin. Gushue’s primary focus at this time is winning gold at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan/Cortina d’Ampezzo,
However before Gushue has a chance to win his second Olympic gold in his career, he needs to qualify first. Gushue’s team that consists of Brendan Bottcher, Mark Nichols and Geoff Walker, needs to win the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials in Halifax, Nova Scotia in November. This is going to be a very difficult field. It will include teams skipped by Kevin Koe, Brad Jacobs, Matt Dunstone, Mike McEwen, Rylan Kleiter and John Epping.
In Gushue’s career, he has won the gold medal at the 2017 World Men’s Curling Championship in Edmonton, four additional silver medals at the World Men’s Curling Championship, six Brier titles (2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024), 15 events at the Grand Slam of Curling, two gold medals at the World Junior Men’s Curling Championship (1998 and 2001), and the bronze medal at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.