Alberta moves on to play Gushue in Brier finals

Brendan Bottcher just keeps on rolling.

The 26-year-old skip from Alberta has made some of the biggest shots in the Brier this week and Sunday was no exception.

His talent was rewarded with a 6-4 win over Team Ontario to punch his ticket to the finals against Team Canada and Brad Gushue.

“It’s pretty remarkable, I’m just so proud of the guys,” Bottcher said after the Sunday afternoon win. “We’ve done everything we wanted to do this week, we’ve beaten so many good teams.”

In fact, one of those teams was Gushue’s. Alberta was the only team this week that figured out a way to topple Team Canada. They did during round robin play on Wednesday, earning at 10-7 victory.

Bottcher said that win does give them confidence going into Sunday night’s final.

“At least we know what it feels like to beat those guys and I think that’s big for our team,” he said. “It’s not that we need to come up with something new in this game, we just got to try to do what we did earlier in the week.”

That said, it will be a tough matchup for the young team against a veteran Gushue who is competing in his 15th Brier, curled 100% in his game Saturday night and has won Olympic gold.

Bottcher said his team being able to stay calm will be the key to their victory.

“I think we’re just trying to approach it that we’re already so proud of how we’ve done and in this final especially we’re going to be the huge underdogs to Brad Gushue. There isn’t a whole lot of pressure on us and I feel like there’s a tonne of pressure on him.”

“I just want to go out there in the final and play our best one more time and hopefully it’s enough.”

The final starts at 6 p.m.