Brad Gushue Usa Curling Role: USA Curling Names 45-Year-Old Leader
USA Curling hired Brad Gushue as its new high performance director on Wednesday, putting the two-time Olympic medallist into the brad gushue usa curling role after his competitive men’s career ended in March. The move gives the sport one of its most decorated figures a direct hand in the U.S. program’s performance work.
Brad Gushue Takes USA Curling Job
Gushue said the job fit the moment. “This role felt like a natural fit, and positions like this don’t come along all that often in the sport of curling,” he said. “It is an opportunity to stay close to the sport and make a meaningful impact in a new way.”
He added that he is “excited to work alongside athletes and coaches to help them reach their full potential.” That is the job in plain terms: help shape how the U.S. program trains, prepares and performs, with Gushue moving from the ice into a leadership position.
Phill Drobnick Moves Aside
Gushue takes over from Phill Drobnick, who stepped back from the high performance director role on Tuesday and was named director of coaching and competitions. Drobnick had helped guide John Shuster’s men’s team to Olympic gold in 2018 in Pyeongchang and Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin’s mixed doubles team to silver earlier this year in Milano Cortina.
That shift leaves USA Curling with a new lead voice in high performance and a separate coaching-and-competitions role for Drobnick. For athletes and coaches, the immediate change is the person shaping the performance side of the pipeline.
Gushue’s Resume Reaches USA Curling
Gushue arrives with a record that is hard to match. He won gold for Canada at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin and bronze at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, and he is a six-time Brier champion whose titles came in 2017, 2018, 2020 and three straight from 2022 through 2024.
He also won the World Men’s Curling Championship in 2017 and has 15 Grand Slam of Curling championships, second only to Kevin Martin among men’s skips. After announcing in September that this season would be his last in competitive men’s curling, Gushue ended his career at the Montana’s Brier in March in front of his hometown crowd at the Mary Brown’s Centre.
The timing makes the hire feel like a clean handoff from one phase of his career to the next. The playing chapter closed in March; the work with USA Curling starts now, with athletes and coaches as the focus.
