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 issue. Canada led 3-2 at the mid-game break and iced its eighth straight victory with three points in the ninth end.

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.

Switzerland's Yannick Schwaller joined second-place Scotland at 8-3 after posting a 6-5 win over Lukas Klima of Czechia. Swiss fourth Benoit Schwarz-Van Berkel made a game-winning double-takeout to eliminate Czechia (6-6) from playoff contention.

Earlier, defending champion Niklas Edin of Sweden dropped a 10-8 decision to Italy's Joel Retornaz. The seven-time world champion was tied at 7-4 with Norway's Magnus Ramsfjell and China's Xiaoming Xu.

The results from the evening session would determine seedings for every team but the host side.

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."

After 19 sessions, Germany, Italy and Japan's Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi were 5-7, just ahead of the Americans at 4-7. South Korea's Hyojun Kim was 1-10 and Austria was 1-11.

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