For Team Saskatchewan’s third, Braeden Moskowy, the 2020 Brier was an experience he’ll never forget. And one he wants again and again.
“I just pray that I get the chance to do it again and hopefully get a little better result because it was a lot of fun,” he says.
Moskowy joined the Sports Cage on Tuesday to recap their third-place finish. Skipped by Matt Dunstone, their rink had the best finish for a Saskatchewan rink since 2015.
“That was our first Brier as a team,” says Moskowy. “First time for any of us in the playoffs, and playing on championship Sunday at the Brier. And it’s a totally different animal. You can try to tell yourself all you want that it’s just another curling game. But it’s not.”
They played in Sunday’s semifinal versus the eventual winner, Newfoundland and Labrador. Though they had beaten the Gushue rink on Friday, Moskowy found things to be quite different on the big day.
“The hardest part we battled with was the nerves you feel on that championship Sunday. Obviously we didn’t play our best and you always leave a few shots out there and you want to be better. But the more you can get to that stage and be on that stage, the better.”
And there’s real reasons to believe they will be back on that stage. Chief among them is that Dunstone, the skip, is only 24 years old.
“There’s no one that has done anything close to what he’s doing right now at his age–winning a Grand Slam, playing on Sunday at the Brier–since Kerry Burtnyk (who was 22 when he won the Brier in 1981)” says Moskowy.
“I think what we’re all most excited about is: we can get a lot better. We were the youngest team in the playoffs by quite a bit. It’s exciting.”
Though he mostly tuned out social media during the Brier, Moskowy was reminded quickly how much Saskatchewan was rooting for them.
“That’s what makes it so special–the support that we felt. And I’ve said it since day one: the support you receive in Saskatchewan is, bar none, anything like anywhere else or in any province I’ve seen. It’s the best.”
“That’s where you see our raw emotion come from. We want to make those people proud and happy. We were close to doing it, but not quite.”
The Dunstone rink has two major events left on the World Curling Tour–the Players Championship and Champions Cup. With the Brier bronze medal and a WCT win in their pocket already, it will be a great off-season for the Saskatchewan foursome. Great, and important because getting back to the Brier is no sure thing.
“You honestly just never know if you’re going to be able to get back there,” says Moskowy. “And we’d love to say ‘Hey, we’ll be back next year!’ and ‘Let’s do this again and let’s finish the job.’ But just getting to the Brier itself is such a grind. We were one loss away from not even being at the Brier this year.”
The 29 year old is taking nothing for granted.
