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Brad Jacobs’ Team Canada rink won the bronze medal game in convincing fashion to leave Moose Jaw with some hardware.
The Jacobs rink put up five points in the fourth end to power it to an 11-2 win over China at the Men’s World Curling Championships on Sunday.
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“We wanted to win. We wanted to come out of this thing strong and hold our heads high and get ourselves on the podium and do it for our fans,” Jacobs said.
“That was our last team game for the four of us — our front-end isn’t going to make it to the player’s championship and we’ve got a couple of spares coming in.
“We wanted to end this season with the four of us on a winning note and it feels great.”
The Alberta-based rink consisted of lead and Regina-product Ben Hebert, second Brett Gallant, third Marc Kennedy and was skipped by Jacobs. They went 11-1 in the round-robin but ended up meeting Scotland — the number one-ranked team in the world — in the semifinals.
“We played way too good of a week … to walk away with nothing,” Hebert said.
“I think it was evident today we were on the wrong side of the semifinal draw, we could be in the final easily … We played the best team in the world in the semi and gave them a hell of a battle and came up a bit short. That’s the luck of the draw — sometimes you get a soft semi and sometimes you don’t.”
Canada bounced back after a 7-4 loss to Scotland Saturday afternoon that dashed away their hopes of walking away as champions. Canada hasn’t won the men’s world title since 2017.
China’s rink consisted of skip Xiaoming Xu, lead Zhichao Li, second Zhiyu Wang, and third Xueqing Fei. China had gone 8-4 in the round-robin before losing to Switzerland 7-3 in the semifinals.
Canada put up three in the first end after Xu missed on a takeout attempt. That miss allowed Jacobs to draw for three in front of 3,270 fans at Temple Gardens Centre.
After a blank in the second end, China was held to one in the third.
Then came the fifth end, where Canada would put up five, putting the game fully out of reach.
A steal of two in the next end further extended the Canada’s lead in the game to 10-1.
The rest of the game was more of a formality than anything, with tournament rules stating games must complete the eighth end.
China scored another single point in the sixth, a blank in the seventh and then Canada added one more in the eighth to finish off the game.
Hebert said it was special to play in front of a Saskatchewan crowd.
“It was everything I expected it to be and it was better than that. The people here are amazing,” he said.
“It was a pleasure playing here. Saskatchewan is my favourite place in the country and the people here are great. Curling fans are amazing, sports fans, this was 10 out of 10.”
While it’s not the next event on their calendar, in terms of importance the next big event for the Jacobs rink — and Canadians as a whole — will be the Olympic Trials in Halifax, N.S., from Nov. 22-30.
“Can’t wait for that. We have a lot of building and work to do between now and then. All the teams are going to be working hard to be ready for that event. I have no doubt we will be ready for that event,” Jacobs said.
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