MOOSE JAW -- It’s safe to say Team Canada is on a bit of a roll at the World Men’s Curling Championship.
Canada’s Brad Jacobs foursome picked up their third straight early win during Draw 15 on Monday morning at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw, rolling to an 8-2 victory in seven ends over China’s Xiaoming Xu.
As a result, Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert are now 8-1 and remain in first place in the round robin, one win ahead of Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller.
The key, as it has been much of the week, was how quickly Canada was able to catch on to the ice conditions and gain control of the game. That meant that while China was getting a handful of tough misses as the contest progressed, Canada was making their shots -- and that once again led to an early lead and constant pressure on their opponents.
“The rocks are a little sharp right now and there’s been a touch of frost the last couple games, so sometimes it’s not as predictable as it was earlier in the week,” said Gallant.
“It’s nice that there’s enough curl to make all the shots now, it’s not autopilot to the broom with how the speed of the ice is. There were probably a few more misses than there were the first few games, but they were close and Cups (Jacobs) is playing awesome so we just need to keep it close.”
Canada got things started with a deuce in the first end, held China to one in the second and put up another two in the third, and it was all but academic from there. Xu scored his only other point in the game in the fourth end, after which Jacobs picked up one in the fifth, stole two in the sixth and another in the seventh.
You can see how that all played out on SportsCage.com’s live blog of the game by clicking right here.
China had been playing exceptionally well themselves heading into their contest and were tied for second place at 6-2, and that had Canada expecting a hard-fought battle,
“They’ve been playing really well and we haven’t seen them play as much the last couple years, so we just wanted to make sure we came out strong, worry about our shots,” Gallant said. “We knew they were going to play well, but we had a good game and it sets us up well for the big game tonight.”
Of course, with the way Jacobs is going right now, Canada could beat pretty much anyone at any given time -- the veteran skip is currently at 92 per cent for the tournament to lead everyone at his position.
“He’s brimming with confidence, and a confident skip is a dangerous skip,” Gallant said. “He has all the shots, his weights are great, his lines are great, he’s calling a good game too. It’s a lot of fun to be on a team when the skip is feeling and playing that great.”
Canada once again won’t be able to relax even a bit in their evening draw, as they’ll face another team on a roll in Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller, who are in second place with a 7-2 record.
Thing is, Canada has been taking down teams alongside them at the top of the standings all week, and will look to do the same when they’re back on the ice at 7 p.m. at Temple Gardens Centre.
“We're winning important games right now,” Jacobs said. “I think our last few opponents have either had the same amount of losses as us or maybe one less, and we're knocking them down and staying ahead of them. That's definitely the goal. That's really important.
“But regardless, we're just going to try to stay present. I know it's a cliche, but we really have to stay present in these round-robin games… it would be really nice to sneak into the 1-2 spot. Finish this thing strong going into the playoffs and then just lay it all out there on the weekend.”
Other results from Draw 15 saw Sweden’s Niklas Edin stun Scotland’s Bruce Mouat with a 10-4 victory in seven ends, while Switzerland dominated Italy’s Joel Retornaz 8-3 and Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell took a 10-5 win over Korea’s Eubin Kim.
Standings after Draw 15 are as follows
Canada (Jacobs) 8-1
Switzerland (Schwaller) 7-2
China (Xu) 6-3
Scotland (Mouat) 6-3
Sweden (Edin) 6-3
Czechia (Klima (5-4)
Norway (Ramsfjell) 5-4
United States (Dropkin) 4-4
Germany (Muskatewitz) 4-5
Italy (Retornaz) 3-6
Japan (Yamaguchi) 3-6
Korea (Kim) 0-9
You can follow along with all the action from Canada’s first-place showdown with Switzerland on SportsCage.com’s live blog during the game at 7 p.m., and catch all the updated scores and standings at www.worldcurling.org.
