Eat. Sleep. Curl. Repeat!

Canada’s Team Jacobs surges to top of standings after win over Norway at 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship

With seven games down and five more to go in a long round robin at the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship, Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs will stick with what’s been working for it this week in Moose Jaw, Sask.

Eat. Curl. Sleep. Repeat.

That magic formula helped the Canadians earn an 8-3 win over Norway’s Team Magnus Ramsfjell (4-3) and improve to 6-1 in the standings, tied with China’s Team Xiaoming Xu for first place at Temple Gardens Centre.

The Wednesday morning game started with some back-and-forth singles before Canada broke the game open in the second half, using its experience and skill to pull away from the Norwegians, who began the week hot.

“Every team is going to try their hardest, never quit, never going to give up, and you expect them to continue to make shots,” said Jacobs. “Nobody’s going to give anyone a game here, so that’s a good team. We know that we need to just continue making shots in order to close that game out, and it’s about taking advantage of your opportunities. I think one of the main things we need to continue to do right now and moving forward is just stay mentally strong.”

Norway started with hammer, marking only the second time in seven games Canada’s opposition could outshoot Team Jacobs in the pre-game last-stone draw. However, the Norwegians couldn’t collect the bounty, taking only a single point.

After trading singles in the second and third ends, Canada’s Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Tyler Tardi, team coach Paul Webster and national coach Jeff Stoughton pulled away in the fourth end with a score of three.

Gallant helped set the score up with a runback double using a Norwegian centre guard to remove all three stones from play. That shot brought the action to the house’s exterior and led to a Team Jacobs draw for three after Norway was too thin on its peel-weight double-takeout attempt.

As the game continued, Hebert knew the Canadians had to capitalize on those kinds of misses.

“We got a couple of misses out of them that normally we wouldn’t get,” said Hebert. “They’re a really good team and we’ve played them lots in the Slams. You got to take advantage of your misses out here because you don’t get too many and we capitalized today and it was a good win.”

Back with hammer in the sixth, Canada had a hit for two but settled for one after over-curling and ticking a centre guard.

However, Team Jacobs made up for it in the following end with a steal of one, although that result wasn’t always in the cards after Team Jacobs missed its last-shot hit attempt to sit six, ticking a centre guard. The Canadians got away with it as Norway went for the deuce by attempting a tricky tap-split. Ramsfjell and his team neither made the tap nor split and had to give up the steal, which was confirmed after the measure.

In the eighth, Canada ended the game with a steal of two. The result was brought upon after Norway missed a double takeout, leading to handshakes and an early finish to the game.

The Canadians welcomed the short game, and are back on the ice later Wednesday at 7 p.m. (all times Central Standard) against the Czech Republic’s Team Lukas Klima (4-3).

Wednesday marks the Canadian squad’s second of three morning-night game days, leading to late nights and early mornings. However, the team hasn’t ventured far from its routines and keeps itself fresh with plenty of rest and treatments between games.

Team Jacobs is not taking the night game lightly. It takes on a Czech Republic team that has improved exponentially at world championships over the past four years. Team Klima is only one game shy of tying its personal best wins at the event with nearly a full second-half round-robin schedule to go. 

Team Klima won its only career meeting against Team Jacobs after defeating the Canadians in October 2024 at a tour event in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

“They beat us this year. So if they think we’re taking them lightly, we’re coming. So we’ll be ready for tonight,” Hebert said.

In other Wednesday morning games, Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin (5-2) only needed six ends to best Team Korey Dropkin of the United States (3-4) 7-1; Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller (5-2) climbed up the rankings after a convincing 11-7 win over Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat (5-2); and Japan’s Team Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi (3-5) bettered South Korea’s Team Changmin Kim (0-7) with a 7-4 victory.

Teams with the bye included China, Czech Republic, Germany’s Team Marc Muskatewitz (3-4), Italy’s Team Joel Retornaz (2-5) and Austria’s Team Mathias Genner (0-7).

Round-robin play runs through to Friday, with the top six teams making the playoffs; no tiebreakers will be played, so ties for playoff spots will be broken based on head-to-head results, and if that doesn’t resolve the tie, then the pre-game Last-Shot Draw distances.

The top two teams from round-robin play will be seeded directly into the semifinals on Saturday at 3 p.m., while third will play sixth and fourth will play fifth in the qualifying-round games earlier on Saturday, at 9 a.m.

The winners of the qualifying-round games will advance to the semifinals. The semifinal winners will play for gold on Sunday at 3 p.m., with the semifinal losers battling for bronze Sunday at 9 a.m.

The BKT World Men’s Curling Championship continues today with draws at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Live scoring, standings and statistics are available by CLICKING HERE.

TSN and RDS2 will provide complete coverage of the championship. CLICK HERE for the full broadcast schedule.

For ticket information, visit www.curling.ca/2025worldmen/tickets.

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