Dominating win!

Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs cruises to bronze-medal victory at 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship

While it wasn’t the golden finish that had had been dreamed about, Team Canada walked away with heads held high and a bronze medal in hand after a dominating win Sunday at the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship. 

Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs overpowered China’s Team Xiaoming Xu to the tune of 11-2 in eight ends in the bronze-medal game at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw, Sask.

The win came just 18 hours after a crushing loss to Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat in the semifinal. Team Jacobs narrowly missed a difficult slash-double takeout for the potential win that would have put Canada in the gold-medal game. Instead, the Canadians had to regroup quickly and finish their assignment to earn a spot on the podium in the bronze-medal game on Sunday morning.

“We wanted to win. You know, we wanted to come out of this thing strong, hold our heads high, get ourselves on the podium,” Jacobs said. “Do it for ourselves, do it for the fans and we were able to do that today, so I’m really proud of us.”

Jacobs joined his teammates at the start of this season and when he looks back at his year in review, he is proud of what the unit has accomplished so far while representing Calgary’s Glencoe Club. 

“We learned a lot about ourselves and our team coming through the Brier the way we did, then fighting and battling hard here at the Worlds. I was thinking about it. In our last 34 games, we were 30-4. We lost to Ross Whyte, Brad Gushue and twice to Bruce Mouat. That’s a heck of a record, and I’m really proud of that,” said Jacobs. “I think it just goes to show that we can compete at the highest level, both in Canada and on the world stage. If we can continue to have a growth mindset and improve, who knows? Maybe we can make it to the top of the world stage one day.”

The bronze-medal win is the last game Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert will play as a unit this season. Hebert and Gallant will not suit up for the Players’ Championship in Toronto later this week due to work/personal commitments and preparation for the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, respectively. Ending with the win is a good way to go out as the team now prepares for the 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials, with the goal of representing Canada at the upcoming 2026 Olympic Winter Games.

Canadian curling fans had little doubt of the end result as early as the first end. The Canadian team, backed by alternate Tyler Tardi, team coach Paul Webster and national coach Jeff Stoughton, sprinted out of the gates. On its first shot, Team Jacobs made a split to sit two stones in the 12-foot. China’s Team Xu tried to remove a Canadian counter but overcurled and missed. It set up a routine draw to the paint for three, which put Canada in the driver’s seat for the game.

With hammer again in the fourth end, Team Jacobs added another five points for a commanding 8-1 lead. China attempted to hit-and-roll off its own to sit in scoring position but hit it too thin. That left Canada with a hit for the big end.

“We liked that call in the first end, the split, because if we make it, we lay two on them, and we’re almost all the time going to get a deuce. We got a big break when he flashed a hit; we didn’t expect that,” Jacobs said, who now has added bronze to his world championship repertoire after earning silver in 2013. “But coming out of the gate strong with a three was awesome. And then the five, I mean, obviously broke the game wide open.”

Even when Canada didn’t have the last stone, it still kept its opposition on their heels. In the fifth, Team Jacobs made a tidy hit-and-roll to sit three. Xu was light on his draw, and Canada earned another two points and a nine-point lead at the break.

China scored a single in the sixth, Canada blanked the seventh and then scored a single in the eighth for China to concede.

It was Hebert’s fifth world championship and Moose Jaw has stood out as one of the best for the Regina-born lead. Even though he’s won two golds (2008 and ’16) and two silver (2009 and ’19), the Saskatchewan crowd stands out among the rest.

He also doesn’t take opportunities to wear the Maple Leaf for granted. So, even with the bronze-medal performance not being the standard he hoped for this week, the result is still something he’s proud of.

“We were playing good enough to win and we just came up a couple shots short. But for us, it’s tough to get out of Canada. You’ve got to beat Gushue, you’ve got to beat Dunstone, Koe, Ferbey, Martin, Stoughton,” said Hebert. “I’ve been to five of these through 20 years almost. There’s a lot of good teams out there. So for us, it’s a huge privilege to be here. I got to wear the Maple Leaf again, which was a total blessing.”

Kennedy won two gold and one silver alongside Hebert and adds bronze to his collection. Gallant earned one gold in 2017 and silvers in 2018 and ’22.

The win marks Canada’s eighth bronze medal at the World Men’s Championship. The last time Canada earned bronze was in 2015 at Halifax, with a Canadian team led by Moose Jaw native Pat Simmons.

The event wraps up with the gold-medal game at 3 p.m. Central Standard Time. Team Yannick Schwaller aims to end Switzerland’s 32-year gold-medal drought with a win later today against Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat. Meanwhile, Scotland’s Team Mouat is seeking its second world title in three years after winning the event in Ottawa in 2023.

Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship are available by CLICKING HERE.

TSN and RDS2 will provide complete coverage of the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship. CLICK HERE for the complete schedule.

This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/2025worldmen/nouvelles/?lang=fr.