Team Gushue return to Canada with curling pride intact

Brad Gushue and the Canada men's curling team did something important for their nation at the Winter Olympics Beijing 2022.

By defeating the USA 8-5 in a thrilling North American encounter, and winning the bronze medal, they kept Canada's streak of winning a medal at each Winter Games since curling's debut at Nagano 1998 alive.

Team Gushue could not hold back their emotions as their victory was confirmed in the Ice Cube last Friday (18 February).

And the tears flowed again on Tuesday as they returned home to St. John's International Airport in Newfoundland.

"I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm going to have to cry again,'" Gushue told reporters in reaction to the crowd of family and supporters who came to the airport to greet their bronze medal heroes.

"There's been a lot of tears shed in the last four or five days, ever since the semi-final game. To see the family tear up, I started to tear up. It's been a long journey — 16 years — to get this opportunity again."

Team Gushue won gold at Torino 2006 but, such is the fierce competition within Canadian curling, had to wait until Beijing 2022 to go for another medal.

"The biggest challenge this time around was the lack of fans in the stands," Gushue told reporters at St. John's International Airport. "You don't have that energy that you have sometimes at these big events and certainly the energy from your family and supporters.

"When things are going bad, they're there for support and when things are going good, they're there to keep you going. We had to get that through FaceTime and phone calls, so it would've been nice to have them over there, but again, we tried to make them feel as much a part of this as we could.

"I don't know if it was necessarily harder, it was just much