John Shuster

Pete Fenson rink and 2006 Winter Olympics

Shuster began his international career playing lead for the Pete Fenson rink. He played in his first world competition at the 2003 Ford World Men's Curling Championship, where the U.S. finished eighth. The rink returned to the Worlds at the 2005 Ford World Men's Curling Championship, where the rink lost in a tiebreaker game, after posing an 8-3 round robin record. The Fenson rink won the 2005 United States Olympic Curling Trials and went on to play at the 2006 Winter Olympics, where it won a bronze medal (the first-ever Olympic medal in curling for the U.S.). After the season, Shuster left the rink to form his own team.

2007-2014

Shuster played in his first Worlds as a skip at the 2009 Ford World Men's Curling Championship in Moncton, New Brunswick, finishing with a 7-4 record and losing in a tiebreaker match against Norway to finish fifth. His rink won the 2009 United States Olympic Curling Trials and represented the United States at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. However, after Shuster missed several crucial last-rock shots in three of the United States' first four matches in the 2010 Winter Olympics, U.S. coaches took the unusual step of benching Shuster and replacing him with alternate Chris Plys.^[3]

After skipping the 2010 Olympic team to a last place finish, Shuster joined the Craig Brown rink as his third. For the 2010-11 season, Shuster formed his own rink with Zach Jacobson, Jared Zezel, and John Landsteiner. He then replaced Jacobson with longtime teammate Jeff Isaacson at third in the 2012–13 season. Shuster won his second World Curling Tour event as skip at the 2012 St. Paul Cash Spiel, defeating Todd Birr in the final.

After back-to-back bronze medal finishes at the 2012 and 2013 United States Men's Curling Championships, Shuster and his team were selected to participate at the 2013 United States Olympic Curling Trials by the national High Performance Program committee.^[4] Shuster and his team finished first in the round robin, and played Pete Fenson in the three-game final round, winning after the third. Thus, Shuster's rink represented the United States at the qualifying event for the Olympics, and succeeded in securing the final spot at the Olympics for the United States. He again represented the United States at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, marking his third consecutive appearance at the Olympics. However, Shuster's rink got off to a slow start and was unable to recover, finishing in ninth place with a 2–7 win-loss record.

U.S. rejection and 2018 Winter Olympics

Following the U.S. team's Olympic struggles and a post-Olympics combine (to which 14 curlers were invited), Shuster and Landsteiner were among the four curlers axed from the national High Performance Program, which was setting up a new curling training camp.^[5] In response, Shuster created a new rink known as "The Rejects", made up of himself, Landsteiner, fellow combine reject Matt Hamilton, and Tyler George, a longtime world-class curler (and friend of Shuster's) who hadn't attended the combine due to his work.^[5] Shuster's new rink won the 2015 national championship, defeating both High Performance Program teams, and then represented the United States at the 2015 Ford World Men's Curling Championship, again losing in a tie breaker match and settling for fifth place. As a result of its success, the entire Shuster rink was added to the High Performance Program for 2016.^[5] At the 2016 World Men's Curling Championship, Shuster's rink won a bronze medal. Shuster's rink then added Joe Polo, a former teammate of Shuster and George with the Pete Fenson rink, as alternate and won both the 2017 national championship and the 2017 United States Olympic Curling Trials, thus setting up Shuster's fourth straight Olympic appearance and third straight one as U.S. team skip.^[5] The team played in the 2017 Ford World Men's Curling Championship, where they lost in the bronze medal game against Team Switzerland, skipped by Peter de Cruz.

In the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the U.S. rink lost four of its first six matches and needed to win all of its three remaining matches to qualify for the four-team medal round, but all of its remaining opponents (Canada, Switzerland, and Great Britain) were currently among those top four teams. Nevertheless, the U.S.A. rink won all three matches to qualify for the playoffs, then defeated defending Olympic champion and reigning world champion Canada in the semifinals to reach the gold-medal match versus Niklas Edin's rink representing Sweden. The gold-medal game was a nail biter through 7 ends, with the score tied 5-5. In the 8th end, Shuster executed a double takeout with the hammer (the last throw), giving Team USA a 5-point end and setting up a decisive victory, 10-7, to win the gold medal. ^[6][5][7]