Canada to play for bronze at World Men’s Curling Championship

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Team Canada’s gold medal hopes came to an end on Saturday at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Moose Jaw.

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After securing top spot in the field through the round robin with an 11-1 record, skip Brad Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert lost to Bruce Mouat and Team Scotland 7-4 on Saturday afternoon in the semifinal at the Temple Gardens Centre.

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In the other semifinal, Yannick Schwaller and Team Switzerland topped China’s Xiaoming Xu 7-3 to book their ticket to Sunday’s gold medal final at 3 p.m. against Scotland, leaving Canada and China to battle for bronze at 9 a.m.

While Scotland finished with an 8-4 round robin record, the No. 1 ranked team in the world handed Canada it’s only loss of pool play earlier in the week.

And after beating defending champion Niklas Edin and Team Sweden on Saturday morning in the qualifier match to earn a spot in the semifinal, Scotland — the 2023 world champions — continued to have Canada’s number early on, forcing Jacobs and company to a single in the first end before scoring a deuce to take an early 2-1 lead against the Canadians, who started with hammer.

Following another single by Canada in the third end to tie the game, the teams blanked the next two ends before Mouat generated another deuce to make it a 4-2 lead.

Jacobs would answer back in the seventh with one of the best double takeouts of the tournament as Canada put two points on the board to the tie game 4-4.

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After a single by Scotland in the eighth, the teams blanked the ninth meaning Canada was down by one in the final end.

And with Scotland sitting three on Jacobs’ final attempt, the Canadian team elected to play a takeout for the win instead of drawing for the tie and taking their chances in an extra end.

However, the shot was off the mark, giving Scotland a steal of two and the victory.

“We’re always going to play for the win there I think,” Jacobs said after the game. “We know the odds are stacked against us playing Scotland in an extra end, especially with (Scottish second) Bobby Lammie makes every double peel in the world.

“We were close. We fought and battled all the way to the end. I thought we were really resilient throughout that game and I’m proud of us for being that way.

“We just needed to be a little bit more precise today. We weren’t our sharpest; we weren’t our best. I think our best up against that team and their best, I do think we win. But that wasn’t what we had today and they were stronger than us.”

As a country, Canada hasn’t won gold since 2017 but is coming off three straight silver medals with Brad Gushue as skip. This year, Jacobs and company will now have a chance to add a bronze medal to that total. In the round robin, Canada beat China 8-2.

“We’re going to regroup here and try to get ourselves on the podium and get a bronze medal,” said Jacobs.

tshire@postmedia.com

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