Canada’s Team Jacobs ready for next phase of 2025 BKT World Men’s Championship

Another box was checked by Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs Friday night at the sold-out Temple Gardens Centre to close out the round-robin portion of the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship.

And now the focus turns to the last box, the biggest box of all — the pursuit of a long-awaited, much-coveted and oh-so-hard-to-win gold medal for Canada, which has a world championship victory dry-spell going back to 2017.

But this Canadian team has proven throughout this 2025 BKT World Men’s Championship that it has what it takes to break that drought, and more evidence was provided Friday night as Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Tyler Tardi, team coach Paul Webster and national coach Jeff Stoughton prevailed 8-3 over Team Korey Dropkin of the United States (4-8).

The victory means Canada will carry an eight-game win streak — not to mention last-rock advantage and choice of stones — into the semifinal Saturday at 3 p.m. (all times Central Standard) against the winner of a playoff qualification game between the teams that have won every world championship since 2017: fourth-place Sweden’s Team Niklas Edin (8-4; five world titles since 2017) and Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat (8-4; one world title).

“Yeah, it’s exciting, two games left, and we’re playing really well,” said Gallant, a member of that 2017 world championship team skipped by Brad Gushue. “That was a great kind of finish to the round robin. We all played really well there tonight, so that’s a good way to go into the playoffs, and yeah, the crowd is pretty loud there at the end of the game — that’s exciting for the weekend.”

That sellout crowd serenaded the Montana’s Brier champs, who have all but officially locked up a berth for Canada in the 2026 Winter Olympics men’s curling field, to the tune of O Canada as the game ended. If all goes according to plan, that will be a sign of things to come late Sunday afternoon, but there is plenty of work to be done in the playoffs.

As the most recent member of a Canadian world championship team, Gallant is feeling emotions similar to what he experienced eight years ago in Edmonton.

“This does feel like 2017, just the way this team’s clicking,” he said. “We were really firing on all cylinders that year, and yeah, with these guys, it feels very similar. I was saying to Marc — we had a moment during that game when the Canadian fans were loud, and the guys said, how much fun is this? It brings me back to Edmonton, that same feeling, so, that helps us; that energy kind of helps us. I think it brings out the best in all of us, so, to have that this weekend’s going to be really fun.”

It was an inauspicious start for the Canadians against the U.S., as Hebert had a sliding shoe malfunction just before the game started and needed a rapid repair job during the first end. Tardi threw a pair of shots and was back behind the scoreboard in the second end after a blanked first.

The U.S., with last-rock advantage, was held to a single in the second, and then Jacobs made a precise tap to score a pair, and almost three, in the third.

Canada padded its lead with a stolen single in the fourth when Dropkin was heavy on his draw, and produced another force in the fifth to take a 3-2 lead and last rock into the fifth-end break.

Jacobs was again at his precision best in the sixth, making a terrific hit-and-roll to sit frozen with his first, and then making a delicate tap on a half-buried U.S. stone to score a deuce.

The game ended after nine when Jacobs peeled out a U.S. stone to score three, and yes, all things considered these days, there was an extra level of satisfaction that accompanied Friday night’s win.

“I mean, we’re paying attention to a few of the things going on in the world, and we know there’s a little bit of controversy and some things politically happening,” said Jacobs. “In the back of our minds, you know that is there. We want to win that game and make Canadians proud. 

“We want to win that game, but we want to win that game really for the right reasons. And the right reasons are, we’ve got two big games that we’ve got to take care of in the playoffs here.”

The Scotland-Sweden match at 9 a.m. will go beside another Qualification Round game that will feature third-place China’s Team Xiaoming Xu (8-4) and sixth-place Norway’s Team Magnus Ramsfjell (7-5).

The Chinese clinched third with an emphatic 9-2 win over Scotland, stealing six points en route to the victory.

The China-Norway winner will play Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller (9-3) in the other semi. Switzerland locked up second place and the other first-round playoff bye with a 9-5 victory over South Korea’s Team Hyojun Kim (1-11).

Sweden was a 6-4 winner over Norway in the other Friday night game.

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.

Team Lukas Klima of the Czech Republic (6-6), Germany’s Team Marc Muskatewitz (5-7), Italy’s Team Joel Retornaz (5-7), Japan’s Team Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi (5-7) and Austria’s Mathias Genner (1-11) all had the night off to get first dibs on seats in the Original 16 Patch.

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.

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.