'Hungry' Brad Jacobs skips Canada to big first day at curling worlds
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The first day of the World Men’s Curling Championship finally arrived Saturday for Brad Jacobs.
It’s been a long wait — in fact, a dozen years — since Draw 1 of his last push-off from the hack at the high-profile event in the bid for global supremacy.
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And there was no holding back to open the 2025 edition in Moose Jaw, Sask.
“We’ve been looking forward to this day for a really long time,” said Jacobs, Canada’s talented skip from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., whose crew from Calgary started its schedule with two wins — a Saturday afternoon 7-3 decision in nine ends over Japan’s Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi and a 7-5 top of Germany’s Marc Muskatewitz (0-1) at Temple Gardens Centre.
“Great start to the worlds,” Jacobs told TSN late Saturday. “We’re 2-0, and the boys played awesome. Just an awesome day all-around.”
It’s the fifth worlds for Canada third Marc Kennedy, 43.
Same for lead Ben Hebert, 42.
And the fourth for the youngest guy on the Canadian squad, 35-year-old second Brett Gallant.
But for 39-year-old Jacobs, it’s just his second appearance comes in without a visit to the worlds since 2013 in Victoria, B.C.
To boot, the others of the Brier-winning rink have all been at least twice since — Kennedy in 2016 Basel (Switzerland) and 2021 Calgary, Gallant in 2017 Edmonton, 2018 Las Vegas and 2022 Las Vegas and Hebert in 2016 Basel and 2019 Lethbridge.
“And I’m the only guy on our team who hasn’t won a world championship,” continued Jacobs, who’s flanked by a pair of two-time winners in Kennedy and Hebert and one-time champ Gallant.
“You can’t get any more hungry than me.”
Jacobs certainly showed his hunger in the win over Japan, with his accuracy a sizzling 97% — including 100% on draws — in the first-game victory.
Perhaps the skip’s best contribution was the perfect pick of a Japanese rock he made to score the deuce in the eighth end.
And his rink-mates joined in on the solid execution for a team-toal 93%, to help Canada open scoring with a deuce in the fourth and a game-breaking three-ender in the sixth. The latter was set up by Hebert’s key hit-and-roll.
“Our skipper ended off at the Brier where he did (Saturday),” said Hebert, of Jacobs’ hot hand. “So we’re riding the hot hand and really riding the energy of the crowd out there. It got us going. Had the goose-bumps going a couple of times.”
And so they were off and rolling, taking confidence into the night-cap in which they dominated — with deuces in four and six and a steal in seven — even though the Germans never gave up. Muskatewitz and the defending European champions put three on the board in the ninth to make it close after a rare wreck on a guard by Jacobs, who still managed an 89% effort in Draw 2.
“We do expect to get everyone’s best game, and that’s what we want,” Jacobs said. “We just have to outplay them, and that’s what we intend to do.”
Of course, Jacobs’ hunger for a first world title in greasing that path.
As should the fact they’re on home ice in Saskatchewan and that Canada hasn’t captured the men’s global crown since 2017.
“Other countries in the world have been dominating,” said Jacobs, referring to the non-Canadian run since Brad Gushue’s 2017 victory of Sweden’s Niklas Edin — five times — and Scotland’s Bruce Mouat — in 2023.
“We do feel like it’s our turn,” continued Jacobs. “It’s our time.”
It could easily be Edin’s again — he’s won seven of these and is the defending king of the world. Never mind that him and his Sweden rink (0-1)) have endured struggles this season, just as they did in their first game Saturday night, losing to China’s Xu Xiaoming (1-0) 9-5.
And Mouat (1-0) is the top-ranked team in the World Curling standings and a handful for anybody.
Plus there’s 10 other rinks vying for the crown, with a handful of those legitimate contenders to win it all in Moose Jaw.
“You could probably host this event five, six, seven weeks in a row and you might be able to get five, six or seven different winners,” added Jacobs. “So we’re hoping that it’s our week.”
EXTRA ENDS
In other scores in the afternoon draw at worlds, it was: Czechia’s Lukas Klima (1-0) 6-5 over South Korea’s Kim Hyo-jun (0-1); Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller (1-0) 7-4 over Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell (0-1); and USA’s Korey Dropkin (1-0) 7-6 over Italy’s Joël Retornaz (1-1) … The night draw also featured: Italy 9-2 over South Korea’s Kim Hyo-jun (0-2) 9-2; and Scotland 12-2 over Austria’s Mathias Genner (0-1) … Draws for the remainder of the round-robin days through Friday go at 1 a.m., 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. — all times ET and on TSN — including Canada’s only contest Sunday against South Korea (4 p.m. ET, TSN).
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