MOOSE JAW -- It might not have been Canada’s best game by their lofty standards, but it was still more than enough to get the job done against Czechia on Wednesday night at the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship.
And as a result Brad Jacobs and his crew are now all alone at the top of the tournament standings.
Jacobs and his rink of third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert managed to keep Czechia’s Lukas Klima on the defensive much of the night during Draw 14 at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw, and that would result in an 8-3 victory.
As a result, Canada is now 7-1 and hold down sole possession of first place in the 12-team tournament.
“Couldn't ask for more. It's been a treat,” Kennedy said when asked about how things have gone thus far for Canada. “Everybody's healthy, feeling good. It's just a matter of adjusting to the ice conditions, the ice has been fantastic all week… there’s a lot of curl out there and there's some misses to be found out there, but yeah, unreal conditions. We couldn't be happier with where we're at.”
As well as things turned out, Klima had chances to keep things close, but Jacobs once again had the answer almost every time. That’s become pretty much normal for Canada at this point, and needless to say, it’s appreciated by the players in front of him.
“Part of this is just managing the game so that he has a chance to win it for us, not getting him in too much trouble, and still trying to learn and adapt to the ice,” Kennedy said. “We're not throwing 95 (per cents) out there with that much curl and still trying to adapt and adjust, but he's been amazing. We gave him a few opportunities there, and he's been our leader the whole season. He's been amazing, so hopefully he can keep that going.”
Canada got off to a good start with a deuce in the first end and led 3-1 through three before the teams exchanged single points the next two ends, giving Jacobs a 4-2 lead at the fifth end break.
It was all Canada from there, as a deuce in the sixth gave them even more control, and after holding Czechia to one in the seventh, they’d add another two in the eighth to bring things to an early end.
You can check out how that all played out at SportsCage’s live blog from the game by .
For his part, Jacobs also had nothing but praise for the ice conditions, even if they keep the players guessing as the draws progress.
“The surface is unbelievable, ice makers are doing a great job keeping us as players on our toes,” he said. “It's really important to just go out there and collectively read the sheet and we did a really good job of that once again tonight, picking up on spots and making sure that we were releasing the stone well, hitting our weights… we're sitting in a great spot. We're the only team with one loss and that's a great spot to be in right now.”
With eight games in the bag and four more to go, the key now will be to make sure rest and recovery are on point as things get more and more taxing going forward.
“Every team here is going to start to feel the fatigue a little bit from this point on,” Jacobs said. “So it’s really important to stay mentally strong, get good rest between games. We're doing that, but coming through the Brier about a month ago was really big for us. That was a huge grind and a test of our mental toughness. So, we know we can do it and we just got to keep it simple, stay patient, one shot at a time.”
While Canada’s success naturally drew plenty of crowd support, one of the biggest cheers of the night came when Austria’s Mathias Genner was able to pick up his first win of the tournament, defeating Korea’s Eubin Kim 11-4 in eight ends. Austria had a couple of close calls in earlier games -- including a one-point loss to second-place China -- and the crowd of 2,414 made sure to let Genner’s crew know they appreciated their effort.
Other results saw Japan’s Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi just miss a shot for two in the 10th end, resulting in a steal for the United States and a 9-6 win for Korey Dropkin.
Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller moved into a three-way tie for second place with a 7-3 win over Germany’s Marc Muskatewitz.
Standings after Draw 14 are as follows:
Canada (Jacobs) 7-1
China (Xu) 6-2
Scotland (Mouat) 6-2
Switzerland (Schwaller) 6-2
Sweden (Edin) 5-3
Czechia (Klima) 5-4
Norway (Ramsfjell) 4-4
United States (Dropkin) 4-4
Germany (Muskatewitz) 4-5
Italy (Retornaz) 3-5
Japan (Yamaguchi) 3-6
Austria (Genner) 1-8
Korea (Kim) 0-8
Canada has two more tough games on Thursday, as they face China’s Xu in the 9 a.m. draw and Switzerland’s Schwaller at 7 p.m.
You can follow along with all of Canada’s games on SportsCage.com’s live blog and keep up to date with all the scores and standings at www.worldcurling.org.
