MOOSE JAW -- Just when you think Team Canada has shown everyone the best they have at the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship, they go out and do something even better.
Put it this way: in their Draw 17 match-up with Switzerland on Thursday night at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw, lead Ben Hebert curled an incredible 94 per cent -- and he actually dragged down the overall team percentage.
You can guess what that means. Jacobs, third Brett Gallant, second Marc Kennedy and Hebert were in control from start to finish and would go on to a 10-4 eight-end win over Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller, improving to 9-1 atop the standings and ensuring they will finish no worse than second when the round robin wraps up Friday evening.
That means they’ll be the first or second seed heading into the playoffs and will be in the semifinals on Saturday night.
“I mean, that's incredible,” Jacobs said when told that Hebert’s showing was the ‘worst’ on the team. “That was great. That was just, for me down at the other end, it's just such a pleasure to see the guys throw the rock like that.
“You know, I was saying clean a lot. Marc made a couple run backs in that game where I said clean almost the entire way down the sheet, and that is ridiculous. So I’m just really proud of us for coming out in a game that was really important for a lot of reasons. We stay at one loss, which is big. That's really good for our future in this event.”
Jacobs finished the game curling 98 per cent while Kennedy shot 97 per cent and Gallant was the class of them all with a perfect game at 100 per cent. All told, Canada curled 97 per cent as a team.
“I hope we play like that going forward,” Hebert said. “That was maybe our best game of the year. That's as good as we can play. 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. Hopefully we can keep that going.”
Needless to say, the crowd of 3,195 enjoyed every minute of the win, and made sure that the Jacobs foursome knew it after Canada scored four in the eighth to bring things to an early end.
“I got goosebumps that last roar, that was amazing,” Hebert said. “We're looking forward to that this weekend and hopefully we can give them a few more things to cheer about. They're behind us, we feel it, they're doing great. It's nice to be a part of that, that's for sure.”
Canada now faces one-win Austria in the afternoon draw on Friday before one of the more hotly anticipated games of the event against Korey Dropkin and the United States in the evening draw. That game has been sold out since early in the week, with a standing-room-only crowd of 4.500-plus expected for the contest.
“A couple of my buddies hit me up for tickets and they said it was sold out, so I told them they're SOL. That's all I know,” Hebert said with a laugh. “So I'm pumped, I can't wait to play in front of a sold out barn here in Moose Jaw. It's been pretty amazing all week to be honest with you. Even the morning games we've been playing, this has been arguably the best Worlds I've ever played in.
“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.”
Other results on Thursday night saw Korea draw one of the biggest cheers of the evening when Eubin Kim’s crew stole one in the 10th to defeat the United States 5-3 and pick up their first win of the tournament.
Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell overcame a bit of a slow start and went on to an 11-5 win over Japan’s Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, while Sweden’s Niklas Edin took a 5-4 win over Czechia’s Lukas Kim.
Standings after Draw 17 are as follows:
Canada (Jacobs) 9-1
Scotland (Mouat) 7-3
Switzerland (Schwaller) 7-3
Sweden (Edin) 7-3
China (Xu) 6-4
Norway (Ramsfjell) 6-4
Czechia (Klima) 6-5
Germany (Muskatewtiz) 4-6
Italy (Retornaz) 4-6
United States (Dropkin) 4-6
Japan (Yamaguchi) 4-7
Austria (Genner) 1-9
Korea (Kim) 1-9
SportsCage.com will have live blog coverage of both of Canada’s games on Friday, with their game against Austria at 2 p.m. and United States at 7 p.m.. You can check out all the up-to-the-minute scores on www.worldcurling.org.
