Jason Gunnlaugson

Jason Gunnlaugson is a Canadian curler currently living in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Gunnlaugson had been a member of the Peters team solely for the 2008-09 season, prior to that he had played third on the Reid Carruthers team.

He also played second for Manitoba (skipped by Carruthers) at the 2008 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship.

Gunnlaugson is well known in the curling community for his up-weight peel shots.

He is able to throw a rock with a 4-second peel (time measured from hogline to hogline).

Some of his shots at the 2008 Canadian Mixed Tournament were captured on YouTube.

His teammates were unable to keep up with the speed of the rock.

In 2009, Gunnlaugson took over the reins of Daley Peters's team when Peters left the team to curl with his father Vic Peters.

Gunnlaugson acquired a berth at the 2009 Olympic Pre-Trials through his CTRS ranking from September 2007 to April 2009, highest of teams not already qualified.

Most of those points were acquired earlier as part of the Reid Carruthers team, the Gunnlaugson team was the last team to qualify for the pre-trials.

The four-some surprised many by being one of the four teams to qualify for the main Olympic trials, defeating Mike McEwen with the last rock in the extra end of the 'C' Final.

However, at the trials, the team finished winless, with an 0-7 record.

The deal which was announced in April 2010 fell through in November that year, when the Gunnlaugson team was fired by the RCF.

Prior to his deal to play for Russia, Gunnlaugson had skipped his team out of Beausejour, Manitoba.

On April 28, 2010 Jason Gunnlaugson announced his deal with the Russian Curling Federation.

In November 2010, Gunnlaugson won the Russian Men's Curling Cup.

His team defeated Artem Shmakov's Chelyabinsk rink in the final by a score of 7-1.

However, later that month, Gunnlaugson, Forrest and Richter refused to renounce their Canadian citizenships in order to fast track their acquiring of Russian citizenships in order to play at the 2010 European Curling Championships.

After that, the Russian Curling Federation fired the three Canadians.

The Canadian Curling Association ruled that despite winning the Russian cup, the team would still be eligible to compete for the Brier, Canada's national championship.

However, the team was eliminated from even playing in the Manitoba provincial championship, after failing to qualify out of their zone.

At the end of the 2011-12 curling season, Gunnlaugson relocated to British Columbia after taking a job with his uncle's company.

Initially Gunnlaugson was planning to take a year off from competing.

For the 2012-13 season Gunnlaugson teamed up with Jim Cotter, playing third and replacing Kevin Folk who moved to Calgary.

The team won one event together, the 2012 Prestige Hotels & Resorts Curling Classic.

They also played in four slams, making it to the finals of the 2012 Rogers Masters of Curling.

The arrangement would only last one season.

Gunnlaugson would remain as the team's alternate for part of the 2013-14 season, after John Morris was added to the team.

He was their alternate at the 2013 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials but was replaced by Jody Epp for the 2014 Tim Hortons Brier.

Gunnlaugson is known for having been hired by the Russian Curling Federation (RCF) to represent the country at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

The negotiations were for Jason Gunnlaugson and teammates Tyler Forrest and Justin Richter to pair with two Russian curlers (Alexey Stukalskiy and Aleksandr Kozyrev) to create a Russian team to qualify for the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.

The deal involved each of the players earning $100,000 to train.

Gunnlaugson returned to Manitoba in 2014, eventually joining the William Lyburn rink at third for one season.

The team won the MCT Championships and would place fourth at the 2016 Manitoba provincial men's championship.

Gunnlaugson left the rink after the season, and formed a new team, skipping a rink consisting of Colton Lott, Kyle Doering and Robbie Gordon.

After the 2016-17 curling season, Gunnlaugson formed a new team of Alex Forrest, Ian McMillan and Connor Njegovan.

The team won the Performance Spider Midweek Special and finished fourth at the 2017 Viterra Championship, Manitoba's provincial championship.

Early on in the 2017-18 curling season, the team won the 2017 GSOC Tour Challenge Tier 2 event, defeating Gunnlaugson's former skip, William Lyburn in the final.

That season, they also won the Mother Club Fall Curling Classic and the MCT Championships.

Coming from curling strong Manitoba, Gunnlaugson won the Viterra Provincial Championships for the first time in 2020 to play in the Brier.