Sault Ste. Marie’s Brad Jacobs and his team representing northern Ontario at the 2018 Tim Hortons Brier in Regina will take a 6-1 record into championship round action on Thursday.
The Jacobs rink, which includes third Ryan Fry, second E.J. Harnden, lead Ryan Harnden and alternate Tanner Horgan, wrapped up round robin action on Wednesday with a 6-3 win over Manitoba’s Reid Carruthers to improve to 6-1 at the nine-day event.
Trailing 2-0 through three ends, Jacobs would tie the game with a pair in the fourth end before stealing two in the following end to take the lead for good. Carruthers would cut the Jacobs lead to one in the eighth end before the Sault rink sealed the win with two more in the ninth end.
Jacobs called the steal a major turning point after Carruthers was heavy on a draw.
“We were able to kind of coast after that. We’re happy to be at six wins and see how this criss-cross works against teams in the other pool,” Jacobs said in a Curling Canada story.
“From what I can tell with our team right now, everybody’s real comfortable with the ice, with the rocks, we’re making lots of shots. It bodes well going into this next couple of games.”
Jacobs’ next opponent wasn’t determined at the time of writing.
“I really can’t put into words how hungry this team is to win this thing,” said Jacobs. “It’s a phenomenal feeling winning the Brier. We’ve won it before, winning it five years ago, definitely one of the highlights of our careers. We want nothing more to win this thing again and get our name back on the Tankard. We’re going to fight hard, we’re going to battle, and if it’s our week, great. If not it’s all good.”
This is the first year under the new format at the Brier.
The tournament features 16 teams separated into two pools of eight teams each. The top four teams in each pool advance to a championship round with their round robin record carrying over. The championship round then narrows the field down to the four teams that will compete in the page playoff this weekend.
The final is scheduled for Sunday with the tournament champion representing Canada at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Las Vegas later this month.