Five burning questions heading into the 2025 World Men’s Curling Championship

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The 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship opens Saturday in Moose Jaw, Sask.

So it’s time to zero in on a World Men’s Curling Championships — burning ones, if you will — heading into the battle for global supremacy, the final event on Curling Canada’s Season of Champions calendar for 2024-25.

From queries about Canada’s chances to who are the true contenders and what the schedule looks like, we’ll offer our convictions on what’s about to unfold over the nine days of the event …

1) CAN CANADA WIN IT?

That’s an easy one … absolutely.

Calgary’s Brad Jacobs & Co. — that’s the skip, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert — are as talented a unit as they come on the planet.

Together as a new-ish team — the skip himself is the fresh face joining the rink last spring — the four super-curlers have enjoyed a banner year, underscored by their No. 3 ranking by World Curling.

Even better is how they’ve performed recently, highlighted by their 2025 Montana’s Brier triumph two weeks back.

Everything went right for them in the round robin as they went 8-0. The seeding loss to start the playoffs didn’t do much except to fuel them, as they righted the ship to roll off four consecutive victories facing elimination to capture the crown.

“I feel like our team has been stronger and stronger by the month,” Jacobs said. “I think everything that we did at the Brier in terms of our pre-game and post-game meetings, the routine that we got into, the great mentality that we all had — especially as we went into the larger games — of being able to convince ourselves to just stay loose and trust our instincts and trust one another, I think that helped.”

2) WHO ARE THE FAVOURITES?

There’s Canada, of course. That’s an annual deal, given the strength of curling in this country.

And our status as faves is boosted even more since the worlds are being played on home ice.

“Is it more difficult?” queried Jacobs, when asked about being hosts with all the pressure it might bring. “I don’t know …

“Personally, I’m not going to look at it that way at all. I think anytime that you can have the crowd behind, you can definitely create an advantage.”

But it’s been eight years since Canadians claimed the championship — by Brad Gushue back in 2017.

Since then it’s been Sweden’s Niklas Edin earning five of the last six titles, with Scotland’s Bruce Mouat interrupting that run in 2023 Ottawa.

Both are back again as usual suspects — and obvious favourites.

Mouat and his familiar rink are as strong and confident as ever, boasting World Curling’s top ranking and three titles from the four Grand Slam of Curling events played so far on the calendar.

3) WHAT’S WRONG WITH EDIN?

It’s true that Edin and his highly decorated crew have enjoyed much better seasons.

On the grand-slam circuit, they’ve managed just two playoff appearances, bowing out in the quarterfinals of both — not their usual standard on the international stage.

And on the World Curling ladder, they are ranked 13th — that’s seventh best among competitors in Moose Jaw.

But you can’t count out the seven-time winner — all as skip to own an historic mark.

“We know what he’s like at the world championship,” said Canada’s Kennedy, of Edin. “So he’s going to be right in there.”

4) WHO ARE THE DARKHORSES?

There’s more than a few, with countries getting increasingly stronger on the curling scene each year.

The No. 4 team in the world is Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller, who has proved tough at the grand slams with three playoff appearances, including a semifinal showing at the Co-op Canadian Open in Nisku, Alta. It was at that slam where the Swiss topped Jacobs 8-3.

At No. 8 in the rankings is Germany’s Marc Muskatewitz, who has climbed into serious contention on the world landscape. His foursome knocked off mighty Mouat for last year’s European championship and went unbeaten to win the 2024 Karuizawa International, a major event on the scene.

At No. 11 is USA’s Korey Dropkin, who is feeling good about his team’s game.

“In order to win a national championship and Olympic trials, a world championship, or an Olympics, you have to have your athletes in their four best positions and in flow state in competition,”

Dropkin told Olympics.com recently. And I think we’ve finally reached that.”

5) WHO’S READY FOR THE MARATHON?

With 12 round-robin games for each team over the next seven days, it’s quite the hectic schedule.

So teams will have to be resilient.

Here’s how the slate goes …

• After Saturday’s opening day of just two draws, it’s three-draw days Sunday through Friday at 11 a.m., 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. — all times ET and on TSN — for a total of 20 draws
• The top six teams from the round robin earn their way into the playoff round, with the two top avoiding Saturday’s qualification round
• The qualification round Saturday (11 a.m. ET, TSN) pits the third-place team against the sixth and the fourth-place team faces the fifth
• Winners of those qualifying games then advance to the semifinals later Saturday (5 p.m. ET, TSN), with the No. 1 seed facing the winner of 4-v-5 and the No. 2 seed playing the winner of 3-v-6
• The losers of those semis play each other in the bronze-medal game (11 a.m. ET, TSN)
• The semifinal victors play each other for gold medals and the world title in Sunday’s championship finale (5 p.m. ET, TSN)

EXTRA ENDS

Day 1 of the men’s worlds opens Saturday with two draws — the afternoon session (4 p.m. ET, TSN) and the evening agenda (9 p.m. ET, TSN). Canada plays in both — versus Japan’s Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi early and against Germany late … Also in the matinee, it’s: South Korea’s Kim Hyo-jun v. Czechia’s Lukas Klima; Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller v. Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell; and USA’s Korey Dropkin vs. Italy’s Joël Retornaz … The night also features: Sweden’s Niklas Edin v. China’s Xu Xiaoming; South Korea v. Italy; and Austria’s Mathias Genner v. Scotland’s Bruce Mouat.

tsaelhof@postmedia.com
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