By Ben Hoppe, U.S. curling writer
Lost in the flood of headlines following the U.S. Olympic Trials was the incredible start to the season from John Shuster and his team.
The 2018 Olympic gold medallist’s team had never started a season better, having finished no worse than the semifinals of any event to date.
Due to obligations at the Pan Continental Curling Championships in October and their preparation for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, they had to decline invitations to the previous two Slams.
In Saskatoon, any fans (and experts attempting to predict game outcomes) who were unfamiliar with the team’s success were put on notice when Shuster led off the event with a dominant 8-3 victory over Matt Dunstone.
In their four wins, Team Shuster won in impressive fashion, winning by a five-point margin in each game. The confidence was evident.
Throughout the week, especially in their quarterfinal matchup against Brad Gushue, Shuster was quick to call difficult shots, confident they would be made. More often than not, they were, including an impressive triple angle tap to take a 5-2 lead in the fourth end of the quarterfinal tilt. That lead proved to be insurmountable, and Shuster eliminated Gushue in his final Grand Slam of Curling event.
Team Shuster was aiming to be the first-ever U.S. men's team to play in a Grand Slam of Curling final, but they ran into a red-hot Yannick Schwaller in the semifinals. While the team was able to come back to tie the game after yielding a score of three in the first end, the eventual champions proved too much to handle.
Team Shuster will see if they can push for their new goal of achieving a Slam victory at the Crown Royal Players’ Championship next month in Steinbach, Man., where they will be joined by Team Casper.
Casper, on the heels of their successful run at the Olympic Qualifying Event in Kelowna, B.C., finished the week with a 1-3 record. Facing two of their future Olympics opponents, Niklas Edin and Bruce Mouat, the young Casper team seemed to be running out of gas.
With a break for the holidays ahead, the team will be able to rest and recuperate before they head to Steinbach. Four of their five scheduled matches are against fellow competitors for February’s Olympic Games, including rematches against both Edin and Mouat. Their other game? An Olympic Trials rematch against John Shuster.
This will be the first time since 2018 where the United States fields two teams at the same event of the Players’ Championship, when Nina Roth and Jamie Sinclair led teams in the women’s event. This will also be the first time in the history of the event where the United States fields two men’s teams.
U.S. TEAMS QUALIFY FOR WORLD JUNIORS
The success of the United States women’s and men’s teams in Kelowna for the Olympic Qualifying Event had many curling fans throughout the country breathing a sigh of relief. That event, however, was not the only international qualification event USA Curling had to endure this December.
The two youngest teams from the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, led by Allory Johnson and Caden Hebert, headed to Lohja, Finland, for the World Junior B Curling Championships. The teams needed to finish in the top three of their respective events to qualify for the World Junior Curling Championships in Denmark, set to begin just after the closing ceremonies at the Winter Olympics.
Inducing yet another sigh of relief, Johnson and Hebert passed their tests in Finland with flying colours.
Team Johnson qualified for the playoffs after losing just one game in the round-robin to Norway, but that one loss did not deter them. They secured the fourth seed going into the eight-team playoff, thanks to the best draw shot challenge score of any team in the event.
In the playoffs, Johnson put up strong performances against Latvia in the quarterfinals and Türkiye in the semifinals to secure their berth to the world juniors. They did fall short in the final against Japan’s Miura Yuina, runner-up of October’s Junior GSOC U25 event, but the most important goal was accomplished. The players on Johnson’s rink still have multiple years of eligibility remaining for juniors, with three of the four still playing on the U18 circuit. Their advancement to Denmark puts them on a great future trajectory.
Following Johnson, the United States men’s team, skipped by Hebert, took the ice in Lohja and built on the success of their compatriots. Team Hebert put together a dominant week.
Hebert didn’t drop a single game, going undefeated through their eight games and won in convincing fashion. They wasted no time getting out to quick starts in any of their games, outscoring opponents 46-7 through the first three ends of their games.
Several members of Team Hebert competed with Wes Wendling at the World Junior Curling Championships last season. This year’s squad is the grouping that has been together for seven years already. The level of competition will be a step up from the B event, but Hebert should figure to be in contention for a medal in Denmark.
