Canada, Brad Jacobs ousted by Scotland in semifinal of men's curling worlds

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The Great Scots got the best of the Great White North at the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship …

Again.

Canada only lost two games in pursuit of gold during the nine-day event in Moose Jaw, Sask.

But both came at the hands of Scotland, including one Saturday that saw it cut short Team Jacobs’ dreams of global supremacy.

A 7-4 loss in the event’s semifinal did in the crew from Calgary, breaking the hearts of Brad Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert.

“We fought, we battled, we tried …” said skip Jacobs, moments after the defeat. “We just needed to be a little bit more precise. We weren’t our sharpest — we weren’t our best.

“I think our best up against that team and their best, I think we win. But that wasn’t what we had. And they were stronger than us.”

At 5-4 Scotland, the semi came down to last rock in the 10th end with Jacobs banking on a tough angle-raise facing three for the win. A tricky triple-takeout with the right execution was the play. And after Jacobs was the best curler at the worlds for the entire ’spiel, there was no reason to doubt the call.

But the raise only removed one Scottish stone and Canada lost the shooter, which could’ve forced an extra end.

“We’re always going to play for the win there,” said Jacobs, without regret. “We know the odds are staked against us playing Scotland in an extra end, especially when (Scotland second) Bobby Lammie makes every double-peel in the world.

“Just threw it pretty close, and I think we just had to basically sweep it all the way.”

Canada only counted one with hammer in the first end.

And Scotland fired back with a deuce in the second.

Then Canada was held to just one again in the third, before Scotland blanked the next two ends in trying to maintain control and find a big end.

“We can’t come out and go force, deuce, force, deuce …” Jacobs told TSN of falling behind 4-2. “That made it tough.
“Scotland came out firing. They were really precise and not missing, especially early in that game.”

The sixth end saw Jacobs miss on both his shots — an over-curl and a shot to come up short on a freeze attempt — setting up what was shaping up to be a big end for the Scots. But Mouat couldn’t make his first one stick in the rings on a soft hit-and-roll and then lost his shooter on a possible hit-and-stick with hammer, so it amounted only to a deuce instead of three and possibly four for Scotland.

And Jacobs rebounded in the seventh with a massive soft-double — with brilliant touch — to get the deuce back, retie the game and keep Canada alive.

The Canadians then used momentum to curl a solid eighth end to finally force Scotland into counting just one.

That led to Jacobs & Co. in control, as they blanked the ninth and carried the hammer into the final frame.

In that 10th end, it got busy in the house, and Canada turned a half-miss into a sneaky double-takeout with Jacobs’ first stone. But after Mouat turned the heat up with another rock in the scoring area and seconds low on Canada’s score-clock, it left Jacobs facing three with the last shot with not a lot of time to make a decision.

Just as they had done all game, it seemed, they were chasing the victory instead of feeling it. That was not at all how it went down for sharp Canada all week long.

“I know that we were able to get a deuce back in seven and stay in it, which was exciting,” Jacobs told TSN. “But what can you do? That’s sport.

“Hey … we were doing everything we could to try and win the worlds this week. For whatever reason, it wasn’t meant to be.”

Canada finished with 93% execution to Scotland’s 89%, with Canadian lead Hebert throwing a perfect 100% performance. Jacobs was 84% — much lower than his super execution week-long — Kennedy curled 91% and Gallant was an exceptional 99%

“I’m super proud of us,” continued Jacobs. “We’re going to fight and battle all the way ’til the end. We’re never going to give up, and we did that out there (Saturday). You know … I still think we were very resilient, and I’m proud of us for that.”

Unfortunately, it’s now only a bid for bronze that remains for the foursome.

Canada plays China in that game early Sunday (11 a.m. ET, TSN).

The gold-medal final between Scotland and Switzerland follows Sunday afternoon (5 p.m. ET).

“We want to try to earn a medal here,” added Jacobs. “We need to go out and play China strong. They’ve been playing well all week. But hopefully we can regroup, come out in that bronze-medal game and and get ourselves on the podium.”

EXTRA ENDS

In the other semifinal, Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller (10-3) over-powered China’s Xu Xiaoming (9-5) 7-3 to earn its spot in the championship draw, looking for their first gold medal since Markus Eggler in 1992 … In Saturday’s earlier qualification round, it was China with an 8-7 extra-end win over Norway’s Magnus Ramsjfell, while Scotland edged Sweden’s Niklas Edin — the defending champ — in an 8-7 thriller … “It comes down to experience. as well, for us,” added Mouat of the tremendous two-win day. “Like, we’ve been in this situation a few times, and we’ve had to battle through. We’ve maybe not had our best week, but we’ve definitely had our best games (Saturday) against Sweden and Canada.”

tsaelhof@postmedia.com

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