By Ben Hoppe

When Brad Gushue announced his retirement from curling last season, he said he wanted to stay connected to the sport. He’s been true to his word.

The Grand Slam of Curling announced Monday that Gushue will be joining its broadcast team for the upcoming season. The Olympic gold medallist will make his Grand Slam of Curling commentary debut in Victoria for the GSOC Invitational in October.

"I’m excited to be still involved with the game, still involved with the Grand Slam, which was a big part of my career," Gushue shared in a recent interview.

Gushue joins a star-studded commentary team and is looking forward to working with a curler he very nearly teamed up with five years ago.

In 2021, Joanne Courtney approached Gushue to see if he would be interested in teaming up for the Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in the COVID-19 bubble in Calgary. Unbeknownst to Courtney, however, Gushue had agreed to team up with Kerri Einarson a day or two previously.

Had Courtney asked a few days earlier, Gushue would have agreed because of a major selling point offered.

“The benefit of playing with Jo, and no disrespect to Kerri because she’s amazing and an awesome curler, is that Jo wanted to sweep every rock. So I wouldn’t have had to sweep,” Gushue said. "When Kerri and I played, it was like, 'You sweep this one.' 'No, you sweep this one.' It was kind of like neither one of us wanted to take on that role."

Ultimately, it worked out well enough for Einarson and Gushue because they went on to win the national championship. It does leave the rest of us wondering what might have been had one of the best sweepers the game has seen joined forces with one of the game’s best skips of all time.

Fortunately for everyone, including Gushue and Courtney, they now get the chance to team up as Gushue steps into the booth, joining Courtney as a commentator for the upcoming season of the Grand Slam of Curling.

"I’m looking forward to working with Jo," Gushue said. "I think she’s one of the best, if not the best right now. I think her insight from a front-end perspective and from a sweeping perspective for me as a viewer is very intriguing and interesting."

It wasn’t all that long ago that Gushue couldn’t think about anything other than competing. At the time, he was at the pinnacle of the sport, having won six out of eight Briers. He had no reason to be thinking about what he would be doing post-retirement.

Ever so slowly over the past year and a half, as thoughts of retirement crept into his mind, more and more people around Gushue suggested he should pursue commentary. As he thought more about it, he came to the realization that it would be something he thought he’d like, and it would keep him close to the game.

"I think if I just quit cold turkey and didn’t affiliate myself with the game any more, I think that would have been a very difficult change for me," Gushue said.

Just three months after he was appointed as the High Performance Director for USA Curling, the 15-time Grand Slam winner will indeed get to stay even closer to the game as he steps into the booth.

Gushue believes working in the two roles will benefit each organization. He sees it as an opportunity that will allow him to convey fresh, up-to-date information with fans while also having a front-row seat to the struggles and challenges of the players he is working to support.

He was open with both The Curling Group and USA Curling about pursuing the dual roles while he was in discussions with each organization about their respective opportunities. Both organizations were supportive of him taking on the additional load.

"They, like myself, saw the benefit and the synergies," he said. "If you’re going to be commentating about the sport of curling, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s happening."

Providing commentary for the Slams allows Gushue to stay close to the game and the national team program he oversees, but it also fits in well with his family schedule. After referencing travel away from his family in his retirement announcement last fall, he shared that the Slam schedule being front-loaded and complete by the end of December pairs well with his hopes to be more present for his daughters. Their national and provincial curling schedule is busier in the second half of the season, and he can still be around the curling scene he’s known for two decades in the first half of the year.

"It gives me a chance to still be a part of the game, see some buddies. I’m looking forward to seeing Geoff (Walker) and Brendan (Bottcher) and Mark (Nichols) out on the road," Gushue said.

He knows the work will be challenging and require preparation after his first experience providing commentary. Gushue first dipped his toes into commentary in 2018 in Winkler, Manitoba, and he leaned on sportscaster and fellow Newfoundland skip Bob Cole for advice then. Cole passed away in 2024, and Gushue noted he’ll look to others who have been in the booth for their advice to help guide him into his first extended role in the booth.

In addition to analyzing the strategy and shot selection, which Gushue considers the easy part, he wants to bring viewers into the minds of the skips, something he views as lacking in current broadcasts. He hopes to help the viewer understand what the players are going through, their emotions, and their thoughts.

"When you get down to the last couple ends, you may make a decision that’s not the right one on paper. But there’s definitely a thought process that’s going in your head that’s leading to that. I’d love to be able to walk the viewer through those thoughts," he said.

It’s hard to think of a better person to guide viewers through the mind of a skip than Gushue. He was widely known for his preparation and attention to detail, which helped vault him to the most Brier titles of any skip. Those same skills will serve him well as he is surrounded by an experienced broadcast crew who will be there to support him.

"I imagine I'm going to go through some learning curve like anybody in a new role," he said. "Hopefully, some people have some patience with me, and eventually I turn into a pretty good commentator."

If his curling career is any indicator of what to expect, curling fans are in for a treat when he puts on the headset in Victoria.

Ben Hoppe covers the American curling scene on his website, Stones & Stripes.