MOOSE JAW -- Team Canada left absolutely nothing to doubt in the bronze medal game at the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship.
Canada’s Brad Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert scored three in the first end against China’s Xiaoming Xu, added another five in the fourth end and went on to a 10-2 victory at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw.
And just like that, a week filled with success ends on a high note.
“We wanted to win,” Jacobs said during the postgame media scrum. “We wanted to come out of this thing strong, hold our heads high, get ourselves on the podium, do it for ourselves, do it for the fans. We wanted to end this season with the four of us on a winning note, we were able to do that and it feels great.”
Canada had naturally hoped to be playing later Sunday afternoon in the gold medal game, but since that didn’t happen, winning bronze became the utmost priority -- especially after how well things had gone for their team all week as they put together an 11-1 record in the round robin.
“Yeah, we wanted to play that game for everybody, ourselves included,” said Hebert. “We played way too good of a week here this week to walk away with nothing. I think it was pretty evident today we were on the wrong side of the semi-final draw, we could be in that final easily… That's the luck of the draw. Sometimes you get a soft semi and sometimes you don't but we had a great week.”
That the bronze medal game itself went as well as it did for Canada was pretty much expected by Gallant, especially with how his crew played -- the team hit 95 per cent as a unit, with high-90s performances a regular all week.
“We played at a high level, so I’m not surprised by that,” he said. “They didn’t have their best game, so the score was what it was, but I’m not surprised we played at that high of a level. We wanted to do that this morning, so I was proud that we bounced back like that.”
Kennedy pointed out that just getting to the podium at this point should be a point of pride for Canada, especially with how strong teams are on the world stage.
“I’m proud of the whole team,” he said. “I think Curling Canada and our teams are learning that \getting on the podium is important, winning medals is important. You win that last game of the week and you feel like you accomplished something.
“We had a tremendous week, we played unbelievably well. We played the number one team in the world (Scotland in the semifinal) playing at their best and took them right to the wire. We have nothing to hold our heads about, I’m just super proud of the guys, we played amazing and we’re leaving here with big smiles on our faces.”
A big part of those smiles comes from the unbelievable crowd support at Temple Gardens Centre throughout the week. Numerous Canada draws were completely sold out, and it was a rare occasion that there were fewer than 3,000 fans in the building. And they made sure Jacobs and crew knew they had all the support in world.
It was unbelievable, up there with the best curling experiences in my life,” Kennedy said. “Vancouver 2010 was special, it was something we’d never seen before, but this crowd was incredible. The support all week and even today, there was a tough loss yesterday and everyone was still proud of us and supported us… we were extremely fortunate to have this experience on home soil.”
Jacobs was of the same opinion when asked what his top takeaway from the week was.
“I would say my number one thing I'm taking away is the support that the fans and the people of Saskatchewan. Coming together and buying a whole bunch of tickets, selling out this building a bunch of times, and supporting us all the way through with something really special that we'll never forget,” he said.
There’s still one more game to be played at the 2025 Worlds, and that’s the gold medal game between Scotland’s Bruce Mouat and Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller. That contest takes place at 3 p.m. and will be broadcast on TSN.
