Canada skip Brad Jacobs watches his stone against Austria at the BKT World Men's Curling Championship in Moose Jaw, Sask., on Friday, April 4, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

MOOSE JAW - The Canadian team skipped by Brad Jacobs ticked a few boxes with its victory Friday afternoon at the BKT World Men's Curling Championship.

The 8-2 rout of Austria's Mathias Genner gave Canada the top seed in the six-team playoffs and a direct berth to the semifinals. The host team, which will start games with hammer and choose the stones, also locked up an Olympic berth for Canada.

Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert (11-1) then tuned up for the playoffs in the evening with an 8-3 win over American Korey Dropkin. Qualification games were set for Saturday morning with the winners to advance to the semifinals ahead of Sunday's medal games.

"I know that when games are quite meaningful, everybody seems to have another level (or) another gear," Jacobs said. "It's almost like there's a switch that flips in all of us individually and it's really fun to be a part of that."

Canada opened with a pair against Austria and added steals in the next two ends. Alternate Tyler Tardi came on for Hebert in the fifth end to get his first taste of game action at the nine-day competition.

The overmatched Austrians conceded after giving up three points in the seventh end.

"I didn't expect to play this week," Tardi said. "(It's) not my goal to be on the ice. It's to support the guys as best I can. And yeah, it's a great bonus."

Tardi came back out for the opening end of the night game while Hebert dealt with a shoe repair. Canada led 3-2 at the mid-game break and iced its eighth straight victory with three points in the ninth end.

"It's been a long time since I've played on a team where everything has clicked like this," Jacobs said. "It seems like on this team, the bigger the moment, the more that's on the line, the more focused we get.

"That's how it feels to me."

The atmosphere at the sold-out 4,200-seat venue was more charged than usual given the off-ice political tension in the wake of President Donald Trump's punitive tariffs and suggestions Canada should join the country as its 51st state.

A smattering of boos could be heard during the American team's introduction. Many spectators broke out into a rendition of "O Canada" after the home team wrapped up the victory.

"We want to win that game and make Canadians proud," Jacobs said. "I'm like everyone else. I don't like hearing some of this stuff south of the border, calling Canada the 51st state. No, we don't like that.

"We want to win that game really for the right reasons. And the right reasons are we've got two big games that we've got to take care of in the playoffs here."

Top-ranked Bruce Mouat of Scotland secured a playoff berth in the morning with a 6-1 win over Germany's Marc Muskatewitz. The other playoff teams locked up their spots in the afternoon and seedings were finalized in the evening.

Switzerland's Yannick Schwaller (9-3) earned the second seed after posting a 9-5 win over South Korea's Hyojun Kim. The third seed went to China's Xiaoming Xu, who dumped Scotland's Bruce Mouat 9-2.

Both China and Scotland were tied at 8-4 with Sweden's Niklas Edin, who defeated Norway's Magnus Ramsfjell 6-4.

China and sixth-seeded Norway will play in one qualification game with the winner to play Switzerland. Canada awaits the winner of the Sweden-Scotland qualifier.

Czechia's Lukas Klima just missed the playoff cutline at 6-6. Germany's Marc Muskatewitz, Italy's Joel Retornaz and Japan's Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi were 5-7.

The Americans fell to 4-8 while South Korea and Austria shared last place at 1-11.

Canada's only loss of round-robin play was an extra-end decision to Scotland on Monday afternoon.

"We've all been curling a lot," Jacobs said. "But I think it's also big that we've played these last few games in fewer than 10 ends. We've saved our bodies quite well."

Canada is looking to win this competition for the first time since Brad Gushue's 2017 victory in Edmonton.

Once the event is complete, World Curling is expected to formally announce the seven countries that will join host Italy at the Olympics. A last-chance qualifier for the two remaining spots will be held in Kelowna, B.C., in December.

Canada will determine its representatives in four-player team curling at the Montana's Canadian Curling Trials in late November at Halifax.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 4, 2025.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2025