VIRGINIA, Minn. — It’s the first opportunity for Team Brad Jacobs to wear the Maple Leaf this season, and, of course, the Calgary team fervently hopes it won’t be the last.
The early returns Monday night in the opening round of the 2025 United States Steel Pan Continental Curling Championships were promising as Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Tyler Tardi, team coach Paul Webster, national coach Jeff Stoughton dispatched China’s Team Xiaoming Xu 10-4 at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center in Virginia, Minn.
It was the first meeting between the teams since Team Jacobs routed the Chinese team 11-2 in the bronze-medal game at the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship last April in Moose Jaw, Sask.
“I think the seasoned veteran team in us really emerged tonight,” said Jacobs, whose team needs a top-four finish here to secure a berth for Canada at next spring’s LGT World Men’s Championship in Ogden, Utah. “It was conditions that I would say we’re not used to playing all the time. It was a little quicker, a little straighter, very release-sensitive, and I think we just adopted well to the conditions and we hit our weights really well tonight. We were able to manage stones down the sheet and I think that was important.”
The Canadians were in control most of the way, taking one in the first end and stealing another in the second. The Chinese tied it with a deuce in the third, but Canada put together a well-crafted deuce of its own in the fourth, as Jacobs finished it off with a draw to an open house.
After a blanked fifth and a forced single for China in the sixth, a wonderful shot from Jacobs, aided by superb sweeping from the front end of Hebert and Gallant and a nervy line call from Kennedy put a game-turning three on the board.
“Well, those are the shots that I most look forward to as a skip; when I know that we need to be very precise,” said Jacobs with a smile. “There’s a tough line call awaiting, we have to sweep it as best we can and we know the reward at the end is probably that we’re going to win the game. So I get really excited for those shots and I know that the team does, too, and we’ve made a lot of those shots as a team since I’ve come on board. Hopefully we can make a bunch more.”
The Canadian men are back in action Tuesday at 3 p.m. (all times Eastern) against reigning Pan Continental B Division champions Team Marc Pfister of the Philippines (1-0).
“You don’t want to put too much emphasis on it but it’s nice when you get that first one under your belt,” said Kennedy. “Everybody gets comfortable, and momentum’s important to us and to our skip. So if we can get the train rolling early, it’s a good feeling. Everybody will be in good spirits tonight and ready to attack tomorrow.”
In other Monday night men’s games, Team John Shuster of the United States, playing in front of an abundance of friends and family, raced to an 8-1 win over Japan’s Team Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi; Team Marc Pfister of the Philippines knocked off Australia’s Team Hugh Millikin 9-3; and South Korea’s Team Soo-Hyuk Kim defeated New Zealand’s Team Sean Becker 11-4.
The Canadian women’s team of skip Rachel Homan, vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachelle Brown, and coaches Renee Sonnenberg and Viktor Kjell opens play Tuesday at 10 a.m. against Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa, and is back on the ice at 8 p.m. against New Zealand’s Team Bridget Becker.
Scores, standings and full team lineups are available by CLICKING HERE.
All games will be available on World Curling’s streaming platform, The Curling Channel.
This story will be posted in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/fr/nouvelles-