MOOSE JAW -- A long and arduous stretch of round robin games came to a successful end for Team Canada at the World Men’s Curling Championship on Friday night.
Canada’s Brad Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert -- with a first-end assist from Tyler Tardi -- rolled to an 8-3 victory over the United States’ Korey Dropkin in their final preliminary round game on Friday night at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw, finishing with an incredible 11-1 record.
The win also marked the sixth straight game Canada was able to end things early, this time capping things after nine ends. Jacobs has also put up eight or more points in each of those wins, while holding the opposition to three or fewer in all but one of those dominating victories.
So it’s safe to say Canada is on a bit of a roll heading into their semifinal game on Saturday afternoon.
“Yeah, it's exciting,” said Gallant, who had another outstanding outing and led the team by curling 99 per cent. “Two games left, so we're playing really well. That was a great kind of finish to the round robin… this afternoon wasn't maybe our sharpest game, but we all played really well there tonight. So that's a good way to go into the playoffs.”
As has been the case the vast majority of the tournament, Canada was in control from start to finish against the U.S. Deuces in the third and sixth ends gave Jacobs a 5-2 lead, and they’d wrap things up with a three-spot in the ninth.
Canada had sown up first place overall and locked down all the advantages heading into the semifinal with their win over Austria, so the game was a simple matter of finishing off the round robin without having things going awry.
They did that and then some, and needless to say, Jacobs feels things are going exceptionally well right now. The key will be to keep that roll going through the semifinal and gold medal game and get the result they’ve been aiming for all season.
“There's a lot of things going right,” Jacobs said. “Mapping the sheets. Patience. Communication. I would say engagement level. Intensity. Just everything is firing on all cylinders right now… The good news is we only have two more, because that's all I've got left in me right now, I'll tell you that.”
While the playoff teams had been settled heading into the evening draw, the playoff picture had yet to be decided. With other results seeing China’s Xiaoming Xu defeat Scotland’s Bruce Mouat 9-2 and Sweden’s Niklas Edin down Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell 6-4, the playoff bracket is now set.
Sweden will face Scotland in one qualification game, with the winner advancing to face Canada in the semifinal. China will take on Norway in the other, and the winner there will take on Switzerland in the other semi.
The qualification games go at 9 a.m. Saturday, the semifinals at 3 p.m. That will all lead into the medal games Sunday, with the bronze medal game at 9 a.m. and gold medal contest at 3 p.m.
Final round robin standings for the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship are as follows:
Canada (Jacobs) 11-1
Switzerland (Schwaller) 9-3
China (Xu) 8-4
Sweden (Edin) 8-4
Scotland (Mouat) 8-4
Norway (Ramsfjell) 7-5
Czechia (Klima) 6-6
Germany (Muskatewitz) 5-7
Japan (Yamaguchi) 5-7
Italy (Retornaz) 5-7
United States (Dropkin) 4-8
Austria (Genner) 1-11
Korea (Kim) 1-11
SportsCage.com will have live blog coverage of Canada’s semifnial and medal games, and you can follow along with all the linescores in the playoff at www.worldcurling.org.
