Gander's 'Gushue Girls' are ready to see Team Canada go for gold

Sports fans across Newfoundland and Labrador are ready to see Team Gushue hit the Olympic curling rink in just a few days. Most will have their red and white clothes ready, but six women from Gander will be wearing their lucky pink shirts.

Jeanne Collins, Alice McCarthy, Lorna O'Reilly, Betty Hansen, Cindy May and Nancy Dawe make up the "Gushue Girls." The women have been curlers for years and have been in the stands to see some of the team's biggest curling moments.

They've also become famous for their wardrobe, wearing bright pink shirts that spell out skip Brad Gushue's last name.

Collins told CBC News the group became the Gushue Girls at the Ottawa Brier in 2016.

"It just turned out that six of us were going to go to the Brier, and we thought, 'Oh, wouldn't this be fun to get these shirts made?' Which we did."

The shirts quickly got the group noticed on national television during one of the matches that week. It's also where the Gushue girls name began, Collins said, when they were highlighted by TSN's Vic Rauter.

The six have since become a tight-knit group of friends and curling fans. They even often refer to each other by the letter they wear — for example, Collins is called "G" and May goes by "U2."

"One of the girls got sick unfortunately, and when we got to Ottawa, we had no E," Collins said. "So throughout the games in Ottawa, people would come up to us and say 'Please! Please! Can we be your E!?"

Moving from the Brier to the largest stage in sports, Collins said it's exciting to see a team from Newfoundland and Labrador at the Olympics.

"We're very confident. We're a very small province with a very big men's curling team," she said. "On any given day, they can beat all the teams at that Olympics."

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