Canada’s Team Jacobs a step closer to semifinals at BKT World Men’s Championship

A spot in the final six had already been secured before Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs stepped onto the Temple Gardens Centre ice Thursday night at the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship.

A Thursday morning victory over China’s Team Xiaoming Xu, combined with the results of the afternoon draw, produced the coveted ‘Q’ for “qualified” beside Canada’s spot in the official World Curling standings just prior to the start of the evening draw.

Then, a decisive and crowd-pleasing 10-4 win over Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller followed, and put Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Tyler Tardi, team coach Paul Webster and national coach Jeff Stoughton one win away from locking up first place in the 13-team round robin, a bye to the semifinals and the coveted advantage of first-end hammer and choice of rocks for the playoffs.

Add to that the likelihood (not to be officially confirmed until the conclusion of the 2025 BKT World Men’s Championship) that Canada has locked in its berth in the Olympic field in Milano-Cortina, Italy, and all in all, it was a thoroughly wonderful Thursday in Moose Jaw, Sask., for the 9-1 home team, with the prospect of more reasons to cheer over the final three days.

“That’s our best game of the week,” said Jacobs. “That’s what I said to the guys after the game; I said it only took us 10 games to find our best game of the week, but what a great time for it as we wrap up the round robin.

“That was great. For me down at the other end, it’s just such a pleasure to see the guys throw the rock like that.”

Team Jacobs was at its best against a Swiss team that carried a 7-2 record into the showdown, and had beaten the Canadian champs in all three previous meetings this season.

Canada outcurled Switzerland 97-83 on the evening, with Gallant checking in with a perfect 100 per cent outing, followed by Jacobs at 98, Kennedy at 97 and Hebert at 94.

“That’s as good as we can play,” said Hebert. “Not very many misses by us, a bunch of good line calls, really good strategy. Our game plan was awesome. Brad was amazing.

“If we play like that we’re going to be tough to beat, and hopefully we can keep that going.”

Even with first-end hammer, the Swiss couldn’t establish any momentum. After a blanked first end, Switzerland’s last-rock thrower Benoit Schwarz-Van Berkel needed a marvellous shot just to score a single.

Canada replied immediately with a go-ahead deuce on a Jacobs open draw. Schwarz-Van Berkel missed his own shot at two in the fourth, settling for one, and then his last rock in the fifth ended in the worst possible spot, giving Jacobs a nose-hit double takeout to score three. He made no mistake, and the path to victory was clear.

Canada stole one in the sixth to go up 6-2, and Switzerland finally put a crooked number on the scoreboard in the seventh with a pair — the first deuce surrendered by Canada in 40 ends of curling, going back to Tuesday morning’s win over Sweden.

A Jacobs hit for four in the eighth ended the game and set off a loud celebration in the stands.

“I got goosebumps after that last roar — that was amazing,” said Hebert. “We’re looking forward to that this weekend and hopefully we can give them a few more things to cheer about because they’re behind us. We feel that they’re doing great and it’s nice to be a part of that, that’s for sure.”

Team Canada will savour its sleep-in Friday morning before completing its round-robin slate with a 2 p.m. (all times Central Standard) assignment against Austria’s Team Mathias Genner (1-9) and then a much anticipated sold-out round-robin curtain-dropper against Team Korey Dropkin of the United States (4-6).

A win in either game will clinch first place for Team Canada.

“Sleeping in is going to be amazing,” said Jacobs with a smile. “We shut the blinds this afternoon for like two or three hours, and we came out super fresh tonight with lots of energy, and we knew that we just had to leave it all out on the ice, because we get to sleep in tomorrow. We’ve had three mornings in a row, and that sleep-in tomorrow is going to be big.”

Just as big will be the battle of North America on Friday night before a packed house.

“I’m pumped, I can’t wait to play in front of a sold-out barn here in Moose Jaw,” said Hebert. “It’s been pretty amazing all week, to be honest with you. Certainly the best Worlds I’ve ever played in and to be able to do it at home, it’s super special for me. The boys are loving it, the crowd’s amazing, we’ve been playing great so it makes it that much better.”

In other Thursday night games, the U.S. saw its playoff hopes take a tumble, bowing 5-3 to previously winless Team Hyojun Kim of South Korea (1-9), who stole a point in the 10th end to nail down the victory; Norway’s Team Magnus Ramsfjell (6-4) rolled to an 11-5 win over Japan’s Team Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi (4-7); and Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin (7-3) shaded Team Lukas Klima of the Czech Republic (6-5) 5-4.

Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat (8-3), China (6-4), Germany’s Team Marc Muskatewitz (4-6), Italy’s Team Joel Retornaz (4-6) and Austria all had Thursday night byes.

The top six teams after round-robin play make 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.

Round-robin play at the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship concludes Friday with draws at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.

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

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For ticket information for the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship, go to www.curling.ca/2025worldmen/tickets/.

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