By Jonathan Brazeau

A curling team is composed of four players, until it isn't.

Rewind to the 2022 Brier and Team Gushue. When third Mark Nichols tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of the playoffs — and without an alternate available on the bench — Brad Gushue, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker finished the tournament short-handed and won the national title.

Since then, we've seen more teams roll the dice with only three players instead of bringing a spare, to varying degrees of success.

Although World Curling altered its rulebook this season to clamp down on teams playing as three at international competitions, it’s unlikely this will trickle down to the tour level due to the additional costs of bringing an alternate to every event just in case of an emergency. Satsuki Fujisawa and her team have been playing as three since the start of the season, including this past weekend at the ADVICS Cup tournament in Tokoro, Japan.

And if you’re worried about how this will impact your Tuesday night rec league — don't. It would be like me being concerned about IIHF rule changes affecting my co-ed casual ball hockey league. ProTip: Unless you have lofty ambitions, adopt your own house rules and adjust accordingly.

How have three-player teams fared in the Grand Slam of Curling? Let’s take a look in Eight Ends.

FIRST END: The first Grand Slam of Curling event after the 2022 Brier was the Players' Championship in Toronto. Wouldn't you know it, a three-player team went all the way to the final.

Team Edin, reigning Olympic and world champions at the time, played without lead Christoffer Sundgren, who had tested positive for COVID-19 while en route. Edin, Oskar Eriksson and Rasmus Wranå went on a roll, winning five straight games to reach the men’s final, including a 6-5 victory in the semis over Team Gushue, the three-man team innovators. The turns had tabled.

Edin's opponent in the final was also undefeated and the defending champ. Team Mouat, looking for revenge after losing the Olympic final, showed no mercy, downing Edin 8-3 in six ends to retain the Players' Championship men's title. At least we got a spin-a-rama from Edin.

SECOND END: The 2022 National in North Bay, Ontario, was the Grand Slam of Curling series debut for Team Keiser, but only for three members of the Swiss squad.

Raphaela Keiser, Selina Witschonke and Marina Lörtscher competed as a team of three, with Elena Mathis out of the lineup.

Despite playing short-handed and entering the tournament as the 16th and final seed, Keiser went 3-1 through round-robin play to qualify for the playoffs on debut. The run ended in the quarterfinals with a 6-2 loss to Team Einarson.

Keiser played in three more Grand Slam of Curling events that season, all with Mathis back in the lineup, but couldn’t replicate the National result and missed the playoffs all three times.

THIRD END: Back to Team Edin and the 2022 Tour Challenge in Grande Prairie, Alberta. This time it was Team Edin minus skip Niklas Edin, which might be like reading Garfield minus Garfield.

This one is also famous in GSOC lore, as one of the strangest moments in the series. Edin injured his knee during warmups for the semifinals, forcing Eriksson to step up to the plate and call the game. Eriksson, Wranå and Sundgren defeated Team Gushue (yep, them again) 6-5 in the semifinals and Team Dunstone 7-3 in the final.

It was Team Edin's fourth career Grand Slam title and the first (and so far only) time a three-player team has won a Grand Slam final.

FOURTH END: Although Team Edin played as three for a couple of games in the 2022 Tour Challenge, Team Retornaz attempted to complete the entire event short-handed. (If only Ryan Fry were their coach at the time.)

With Mattia Giovanella out, the "Trentino tre" of Joel Retornaz, Amos Mosaner and Sebastiano Arman posted a perfect 4-0 round-robin record. It was the first time Retornaz had qualified for the playoffs in a Grand Slam of Curling event. Despite the strong start and holding the No. 1 playoff seed, Retornaz was eliminated in the quarterfinals with a 7-5 loss to Team Koe.

Still, it was a sign of things to come for Team Retornaz. Giovanella returned for the following Grand Slam event, the Masters, where Team Retornaz became the first Italian club to win a major title in the series.

FIFTH END: Team Hasselborg relied on spares Johanna Heldin and Therese Westman early in the 2022-23 season while third Sara McManus was on maternity leave, but the Swedish squad played as three during the Canadian Open in Camrose, Alberta.

Hasselborg, Agnes Knochenhauer and Sofia Scharback won two straight before losing two straight as it looked like the team would go A-B-C-you-later through the qualifying games of the triple knockout brackets. However, Hasselborg bounced back with a 6-3 victory over Team Constantini in the C-qualifiers to advance.

Hasselborg was eliminated in the quarterfinals with an 8-7 loss to eventual champ Team Fujisawa.

SIXTH END: Team Peterson of the United States was short one Peterson for the 2023 Players' Championship in Toronto. While skip Tabitha Peterson was present, her sister Tara was absent.

Peterson, Cory Thiesse and Becca Hamilton posted a 3-2 record in pool play to qualify for the playoffs but were eliminated with a 7-5 loss to Team Tirinzoni in the quarterfinals.

We also had another border-crossing super spare situation, for one game. Team Peterson coach Cathy Overton-Clapham came off the bench, but only for their second match of pool play.

SEVENTH END: Run it back, sort of. Team Peterson played as three again in the following Grand Slam of Curling event, the 2023 Champions Cup in Regina.

Tara Peterson was back, but Thiesse was out of the lineup after capturing gold at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship a few days before the tournament.

Peterson went 4-1 through the group (impressive) and not only advanced to the playoffs but also earned a bye to the semifinals (most impressive).

Unfortunately for them, they faced the one team they lost to during pool play: Team Homan. Peterson led 2-1 after three ends, but it was all Homan from there, with a four-ender in the fourth followed by steals of one in the fifth and three in the sixth for the lopsided 9-2 decision.

EIGHTH END: South Korea's Eun-ji Kim usually rolls with a five-player team but was down to three without Kyeong-ae Kim and Yeong-mi Kim during the 2025 Masters in Guelph, Ontario.

The trio of Eun-ji Kim, Cho-hi Kim and Seon-yeong Kim maintained their Grand Slam playoff streak with an unblemished 4-0 record through the preliminary round.

An interesting quirk of the 2025 Masters was the first-ever playoff draft, where teams selected their opponents for the quarterfinals. As the No. 2 playoff seed, Kim chose to face the winner of the tiebreaker game happening the following morning between Team Fujisawa and Team Lawes. That turned out to be Fujisawa, whose team defeated Lawes 5-4 to advance.

It may have been risky since Kim didn't know exactly who she would play at the time, but it turned out to be a great pick as her team cruised to an 8-1 victory over Fujisawa in only five ends.

There was just one roadblock for Kim (and for a lot of teams) that season: Team Homan. Kim qualified for the playoffs in all five Grand Slam events and faced Homan in four of them. All four were Homan wins. This time, Homan was victorious 10-7 thanks to four points in the eighth end.

EXTRA END: In conclusion, you might think three-player teams have a decent success rate in the Grand Slam of Curling over this timeframe. Time to pull the rug: these were just the eight that qualified for the playoffs. There were 11 other times when teams played as three (in two or more games) in a Grand Slam of Curling tournament and missed the cut.

Result Number of Times
Champion 1
Runner-up 1
Semifinalist 2
Quarterfinalist 4
Missed Playoffs 11

Surprisingly, Team Mouat missed the playoffs twice as a team of three: once at the 2023 Champions Cup without second Bobby Lammie and again at the 2023 Masters without third Grant Hardie. Team Retornaz tried to make a go as a three-man group again at the 2023 Champions Cup, but they weren’t as successful during the encore.

Also, considering Team Edin accounts for both final appearances as a champion and runner-up, is it really a team-of-three situation, or because it’s, well, Team Edin?