Gushue’s dream flames out again at the 2014 Brier but there’s reason for optimism

Eleven trips to the Brier for Brad Gushue and once again he will leave without the thing he wants most. A national championship.

Wednesday morning's 5-3 loss to British Columbia dropped Newfoundland & Labrador to 3 and 5, ostensibly ending their hopes for this year. Too deep a hole from which to emerge for a playoff spot, as it turned out. Predictably so, according to history.

"I've seen 6 and 5 get into the playoffs," Gushue is quoted as saying in a story this week. No he hasn't, unless he means he's seen it on television. The last time a team made the playoffs with that record at a Brier was in 1996. Won't happen again this year, although credit to Gushue and his team for hanging in to make it interesting right through Friday morning.

Have to feel for the skip from Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. It's not that he hasn't had a decent dose of curling success. The gold medal he can whip out at any time - from the 2006 Olympic Games - just happens to be a bauble that most other players at this year's Brier would find themselves in a fit of envy over (John Morris, Jamie Korab and Mark Nichols can ignore that last sentence).

Eleven provincial championships are nothing to dismiss, either, even if you can make a case that the competition on the The Rock has not been capable of keeping up with the Gushues (his teams have won 31 straight games at provincial championships, dating back to 2010).

There are lots and lots of rumours floating around as this year's Brier continues in Kamloops. Changes are coming, if you believe even just a few of them. Lots of changes as longtime curling associates either look to step back from the game or to cast their lot with another crew. A lot of those whispers are sweeping Alberta like a chinook and racing to Ontario like a clipper. Do the gusts blow to the East Coast?

We'll see how all that plays out. One big question is whether Gushue will fiddle with the line up again, with his team falling short of a playoff spot. That's something (line up changes) for which he has had a track record, although the current group has been together for two seasons now.

At last year's Brier, Gushue arrived with a line up that was once again slightly changed, meaning he'd stepped onto the ice with a seventh different combination in nine appearances. That roster gave indications that the carousel was slowing, as current members Adam Casey and Geoff Walker were a part of the team in 2012 as well.

This year, with 2013 newcomer Brett Gallant also returning, Gushue has exactly the same trio as last year playing in front of him. The pedigree of the three as well as the consistency of the line up must have had them feeling very optimistic going into the 2014 national championship. That had more than a few predicting that this would finally be the year for the Gushue Brier breakthrough. Admittedly, I almost went that far myself on a hunch. Stopped short of that, although I certainly predicted the playoff spot that has evaporated for the rink from Newfoundland & Labrador.

It was a grind for the group right from the start.

Three losses in their first four games. The sense that they were swimming against the current. That happens in curling. Boy does it. Good teams can get caught on the wrong side of the inch and when it just keeps happening, it feels as though there just aren't any breaks to be had. Casey even got his long locks shorn, on Monday, perhaps to change the luck. Or, perhaps, because he lost a bet to Kevin Koe's team in a Sunday loss, it's not clear.

What is clear now is that Gushue's elusive dream remains at least one year away. It is important to him, this Brier quest. In tour events, he wears the number 76 on his jersey in tribute to the last Newfoundland team to win a Brier, Jack MacDuff's 1976 champs. Well, that's one of his Brier dreams. The other is to have the championship played on The Rock for the first time since 1972.

Eleven appearances, zero wins. Might make a guy antsy when it comes to the line up in front of him, but, you get the feeling that the current roster is plenty good enough to win it all, despite this year's challenges. Gallant's numbers at vice illustrated a (mostly) week long struggle. Casey's, too. After a slow start, Walker rebounded quickly and emerged as one of the top leads.

Gallant, the 2009 Canadian junior champion, is only 24 years old and likely just starting to come into his own. Casey, also 24, was a part of that championship team with Gallant. Walker, a two-time world junior champion, is 28. Then there's the skip who, despite having been on the scene forever, is only 33 years old.

If they stay together, you'd have to like their chances at owning the province for the foreseeable future.

Beyond that they'd continue to be in the mix more often than not, for a playoff position at the Brier.

While the slow start ultimately doomed the crew from N & L to the outskirts of playoff action, there's plenty to be optimistic about heading forward. The youth of the team is one reason. The other is the impressive illustration of determination shown even after that fifth loss had doomed them for this Brier. They had to know they were done and yet they kept on keeping on and that's got to stand for something.

It's a bitter disappointment, undoubtedly. Falling short, again, might have Gushue contemplating a tinker or two going ahead.

That'd be a shame. If this rink stays together, it's pretty easy to picture them as the first to win a national curling championship for the province since Macduff's boys back in 1976.

The winds of change are gusting, however. We'll see if they ruffle some feathers down East.