After losing to Brad Gushue in Sunday’s final of the Brier in London, Ont., Matt Dunstone did not sleep.
The Manitoba skip sat with his teammates and talked for hours following the heartbreaking loss, then hopped on a 6 a.m. flight to get back to his home in Kamloops.
“I had a nap from about noon to 5 o’clock this afternoon, that’s all I’ve got for sleep,” Dunstone said with a chuckle Monday night on the CJOB Sports Show. “There was no sleep to be had last night.”
Dunstone and his teammates B.J. Neufeld, Colton Lott and Ryan Harnden went undefeated in round-robin play at the Brier and knocked off Brendan Bottcher in a page seeding game Friday to advance to the 1-versus-2 page playoff game Saturday night.
They held hammer in the final end of a tie game, but Dunstone’s last rock spun just a touch too far to give Gushue the win and a trip to Sunday’s final.
Dunstone then stole the win in the semifinal, setting up a rematch with Team Canada in the final.
After an airtight first seven ends, Gushue broke free by scoring three in the eighth end to take a 6-3 lead.
Dunstone bounced back with two in the ninth and put lots of pressure on Gushue in the tenth, forcing the defending champ to draw to the four-foot against two on his last.
Gushue made no mistake, becoming the first skip in Brier history to win the tournament five times, just six years after winning his first title.
“It was a whirlwind of 24-48 hours. Obviously, super proud of what we went out and did and how we handled ourselves in big moments,” Dunstone said. “Ultimately, we were one shot away from becoming Canadian champions.”
The eighth end is where the game changed, with Manitoba just narrowly missing a couple of shots that resulted in Canada getting the three-ender. But Dunstone wouldn’t change a thing about their strategy that end.
“Three ends left, they’ve got two hammers, we’ve got one, tie game against a world-class team.”
“We’ve got to push a little bit, we’ve got to try and put pressure on them to try and win the game,” Dunstone explained.
“It didn’t work out. I have absolutely no regrets because we played to win the game. It would have been pretty easy to run scared in those sort of moments, to be tied without (hammer) coming home, just kinda take the easy way out and lose a close one. But to take some risks, to play to win, that’s what I’m proud of.”
The 27-year-old was also very impressed with how his team responded after giving up what could have been a backbreaking three points.
“Even for us to come back and grab the two in nine and really make him have a hard draw to win the Brier in ten,” Dunstone said. “When you’re down three, playing nine, that’s a 1-in-50 to win that sort of game. When it came down to it, he had a pretty difficult shot that he had to make to win.”
Dunstone has now won three medals in five career trips to the Brier, capturing bronze in 2020 and 2021 while representing Saskatchewan before earning a silver in his first tournament wearing the Manitoba buffalo on his back, an experience he’s dreamed of for years.
“You try to stay as present as you can in those sort of moments but, 20 years ago, little seven-year-old me would have done anything to play in a Brier final, representing Manitoba. Pretty darn cool, 12 years later after Jeff (Stoughton) was able to win in London, that we were able to come awfully close.”
Dunstone’s squad came into the tournament ranked number one in Canada in their first year together and were just inches away from winning the national title.
He believes it’s only a sign of positive things to come for his squad.
“We’re going to come back hungrier and just continue to work.”
“We’ve proven to ourselves and everybody else that we have exactly what it takes to go out and finish those games off. Looking forward to doing it next year.”