Canada's Brett Gallant taking curling world by storm

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Brett Gallant is getting talked up among Canada’s fab four at the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship.

High praise is being thrown his way from his fellow curling brethren, who believe the youngest member of the crew from Calgary will eclipse the awards they’ve each received when his own career comes to an end.

Makes sense, though, given Gallant’s a curling machine — proof positive by his handling of a hectic schedule over the last three months.

There was a Canadian mixed doubles trials victory in January, giving him and wife Jocelyn Peterman the right to represent the nation — pending upcoming qualification — at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milano-Cortina, Italy.

To follow was a Grand Slam of Curling final appearance at the WFG Masters.

Then came the ridiculous run at the Montana’s Brier.

And just ahead of these worlds was now-Calgary couple Gallant and Peterman back at it in the mixed doubles nationals on his home land of Prince Edward Island.

“He was the first guy to the rink on the Monday after mixed nationals when he was home,” said Canada team coach Paul Webster, of Canada’s talented second from Charlottetown, P.E.I. “He was home on Saturday, back practising on Monday.

“I can tell you just from watching him in the drills that we do all the time, it looked like he hadn’t left.”

Really, he hasn’t stopped, with the oh-so hectic schedule still at hand post-worlds — win or lose.

Gallant and the rest of Team Jacobs head to the GSOC season-finale, the AMJ Players’ Championship in Toronto, which starts on Tuesday morning. That’s less than 48 hours after hoping to hoist the worlds trophy in Moose Jaw, Sask.

And then, he’s back on the ice with Peterman to try to secure their Olympic berth at the April 26-May 3 world mixed doubles playdowns in Fredericton, N.B.

“If you’re playing this late into the year, it certainly beats the alternative because all the events you really want to be playing in are at this time,” Gallant said. “So I’m pretty grateful to be being playing in them.”

But isn’t he tired?

Curling on fumes?

Or is the Gallant machine just running strictly on adrenaline at this point? After all, Canada — which ran its record to 7-1 with Wednesday morning’s 8-3 win over Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell (4-4) and an 8-3 night victory over Czechia’s Lukas Klima (5-4) — is running smoothly, it seems.

“Feeling pretty good, honestly,” Gallant said. “Yeah … it’s been a fair bit of curling and a lot of high-profile events I’ve been lucky enough to be playing in.

“So I was focusing a lot on rest and recovery and trying to get in some good practice reps.

“It was pretty fun, honestly, to be back home in P.E.I. competing (in the mixed nationals), where I grew up. It’s a lot of curling to play in front of some family and friends, but that was a pretty special event for me, so I enjoyed it.

“And it’s not very difficult to get up for a world championship, especially one in Canada. Pretty exciting.”

With all that curling — mostly successful — comes the notion that yes, he can collect even more medals than the rink-mates he’s rockin’ with these days.

And that’s saying a lot since you’re talking about the legendary likes of skip Brad Jacobs — a 2014 Olympic gold medallist and two-time Brier champ — third Marc Kennedy — a 2010 Olympic gold medallist, two-time world victor and four-time Brier king — and lead Ben Hebert — also a 2010 Olympic gold medallist, two-time world winner and five-time Brier guy.

But the 35-year-old Gallant — despite his relative young age — is right there with them in terms of talent and curling knowledge.

Case in point, the former Brad Gushue henchman communicated to Jacobs during Wednesday morning’s third end that he had minimal ice to make a draw. The second was right on the mark with the diagnosis, helping his skip to put the rock in the desired spot to put immense pressure on Norway.

“We just had some amazing moments like that in the Brier, too,” said Canada’s team coach Paul Webster. “Like, we had just had a great game, and Marc came off the ice, and he probably shot 95 per cent and his first comment was, ‘Listen … before we get into anything, I just want to say to Brett that the way you carried yourself, your body language, what you said, when you did, it absolutely ensured I had a chance to throw 95 today.’”

It’s commonplace for Gallant to be the recipient of such accolades.

And that all leads to more hardware in the future.

Gallant himself is already a world winner — and working on a second right now — a five-time Brier king, a two-time Canadian mixed doubles champ, a two-time Canadian junior champion and the all-time national junior wins leader — with 48.

Well decorated, indeed, and with more winning certain to follow.

HOW DID CANADA BEAT NORWAY?

Canada continued to roll along — after the stones were sandpapered to give them more curl the night before — with the Wednesday morning victory over a darkhorse at the worlds.

“A younger Marc would not have liked that,” Kennedy told TSN’s Cathy Gauthier when asked how he liked the textured rocks moments after the victorious match. “That was a lot of curl — that was tough.

“We practise for that,” continued Kennedy. “We have a system that allows us to adjust really quickly to the extra curl and even then it takes a little while to get used to that amount of curl.

“We had a few misses out there with the textured rocks. But I thought overall, we managed it better than they did. And it’ll only get easier and more comfortable as we go.”

Norway got the better of Jacobs on the scoreboard in the early ends, getting up 3-1 through three.

But the fourth end turned it around for the home side, with a three-count that essentially meant the difference in the draw. It was Jacobs drawing to the four-foot for three in that decisive end.

What followed were single swaps in the fifth and sixth frames.

And then after threatening to run near-perfect for the first half of the game, Jacobs wrecked on a couple of guards in consecutive ends — those textured rocks creating havoc — that opened the door a crack for Norway. But it amounted instead to a single for Canada in both the sixth and seventh ends, as the host rink maintained a dominant lead into the late ends.

Ramsfjell & Co. continued to miss chances in the eighth, leading to another steal of two and an early shake of hands.

“As long as we stay rested,” added Kennedy, “we’re going to be tough to beat.”

HOW DID CANADA BEAT CZECHIA?

A steal of two in the first end and another in the sixth end stood out as the game’s big moments for Canada in the eight-end affair.

Jacobs & Co. also earned a deuce with hammer in the eighth. The skip himself was perfect with his weight on his last shot of the game.

“It almost feels like every game is a just little different (with ice conditions) — a little bit trickier — especially after they papered the stones,” Jacobs told TSN. “But we’re doing a good job. We’re really coming together collectively and trying to map the sheet as best we can.

“What can I say? My guys have been awesome in front of me — world class — and we’re making lots of shots.”

EXTRA ENDS

After Wednesday’s double-win day, Canada has two tough contests on Thursday’s penultimate day of the round robin. They play China’s Xu Xiaoming (6-2) in the morning (11 a.m. ET, TSN) and Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller (6-2) in the evening (9 p.m. ET, TSN) … Also Wednesday morning, it was: Switzerland upending Scotland (6-2) 11-7; Sweden (5-3) smoking USA (3-4) 7-1; and Japan (3-5) topping South Korea (0-8) 7-4 … The afternoon draw saw: Germany (4-5) 8-5 over Sweden; Scotland 8-4 over Norway; Czechia 10-3 over China; and Italy (3-5) 8-2 over Austria (1-8) … To round out Wednesday, other evening scores were: Japan v. USA; Austria 11-4 over South Korea; and Switzerland 7-3 over Germany … Draws 15, 16 and 17 are slated for Thursday respectively at 11 a.m., 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. — all times ET and on TSN.

tsaelhof@postmedia.com

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