VIRGINIA, Minn. — There’s no substitute for experience, and if there’s one thing that Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs has an abundance of, it’s experience.
Which is why running into a hot-shooting Team South Korea skipped by Soo-Hyuk Kim for the first half of Wednesday’s game in the 2025 United States Steel Pan Continental Curling Championships at the Iron Range Motors Event Center didn’t faze the Canadian champs from Calgary.
Tied 5-5 through five ends after South Korea scored a deuce, the Canadians exploded from the blocks after the fifth-end break to score four in the sixth end and five in the eighth to post a 14-6 win.
Later Wednesday, Team Canada finished off a perfect day in the Land of 10,000 Lakes with a 7-1 victory over New Zealand’s Team Sean Becker (0-4).
The victories left Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Tyler Tardi, team coach Paul Webster and national coach Jeff Stoughton with a perfect 4-0 record.
Canada took control early, scoring three in the first end and stealing two more in the second, and held New Zealand scoreless through the first five ends. Team Becker scored one in the sixth, and then offered handshakes.
Tardi drew into the lineup for the evening win, spelling off Hebert at lead.
“We like his energy, he’s very enthusiastic about the game, always wants to learn, he does whatever we tell him to do,” said Jacobs with a laugh. “He’s just a great guy to have around, he does his role very well. He’s a sponge, and absorbs as much as possible.”
It was another composed performance from the Canadian team, which can wrap up a playoff spot with a victory in its lone game Thursday, at 3 p.m. (all times Eastern) against Australia’s Team Hugh Millikin (0-4).
“We picked up on our draw weights, we’ve been mapping sheets very well, and sweeping very well,” said Jacobs. “I think right now we’re really just trying to preserve and conserve energy because we know that come Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we’re really going to have to empty the tank and give it all we’ve got in order to try to win this thing.”
In the morning game, the South Koreans gave Canada all it could handle in the first half of the game.
“They played a really good first five,” said Hebert. “I don’t know where those guys are in the world rankings (149th, for the record; Team Jacobs is third) but they sure played awesome. They made it tough on us. We actually we played pretty good and we were tied so, you know, kudos to them. We just kept applying the pressure in the second half and then we kind of got a few misses. It’s good to have a nice little battle like that to get us ready for the big ones (in the playoffs).”
The sixth end turned the tide of the game, and it was a miss from South Korean second Minhyeon Yoo that set the stage. His draw behind a centre guard was behind the teeline, and Canada followed up with three perfect freezes — one by Gallant, two by Kennedy — that the South Koreans couldn’t move. After missed runback attempt by Kim, Jacobs made a draw for the go-ahead four.
“We had to stay patient,” said Kennedy. “I like what we’re doing. It’s not always going to be perfect; it’s how are you going to handle it when things aren’t perfect and I think we’ve done a good job of that so far.”
Canada finished the game with a collective 93 per cent shooting percentage, led by Kennedy at 95, followed by Jacobs and Gallant at 94 apiece and Hebert at 89.
But the numbers don’t tell the full tale; Kennedy said the team’s ability to manage the situation of a tied game through five ends against a team it expected to beat was the most notable outcome, other than the ‘W’ in the standings.
“You know, we have pretty high expectations of ourselves,” he said. “So sometimes we just have to tamper those expectations a bit and do what’s needed in order to win the game and we did a good job of that today.”
Meanwhile, It’s a two-game Thursday in women’s round-robin play for Canada’s Team Rachel Homan; at 10 a.m. (all times Eastern), Canada plays South Korea’s Team Eunji Gim (1-2), and then at 8 p.m., it’s a matchup with China’s Team Rui Wang (3-0).
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-media/
