MOOSE JAW -- If Team Canada were any other curling team, odds are pretty high they would have absorbed a tough loss in their game against Italy at the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship on Tuesday night.
Instead, Brad Jacobs and his foursome showed all the resiliency in the world, enduring a couple of unbelievably bad breaks and going on to a 4-2 win over former Worlds bronze medalist Joel Retornaz.
As a result, Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert are now a win back of first place with a 5-1 record heading into their two games Wednesday at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw.
There’s little question that if it wasn’t for their mental fortitude, things would have been far different.
With Canada leading 7-2 in the seventh end, Kennedy attempted a raise takeout that turned out as bad as a curling shot could turn out, as he ended up removing three Canada stones while leaving four Italy counters all around the button.
Then in the ninth, it was Gallant’s turn to have catastrophic luck, when his raise takeout caught nothing but Canadian stones and left Italy laying three all inside the eight foot.
But Canada never panicked in either situation. And with Jacobs making literally every shot he took on the night -- he’d end up shooting 99 per cent when all was said and done -- they’d escape with virtually no damage each time, taking one in the seventh and forcing the blank in the ninth.
“That’s what being a team is all about, if someone is not making them all the other guys are picking up the slack and they did a great job,” said Gallant. “ Sometimes a half inch here and there and it goes from real good to looking ugly. But we just battled and we managed the game really well.”
Needless to say, there was a bit of a sense of disbelief in the outcome of those two shots, but not so much in the final result of the ends.
“It was pretty unlucky,” Gallant said. “Sometimes you’re so close to making a shot and just a hair away from a big mistake. Those were kind of those shots. But we were playing, we were going after everything and sometimes you live on the edge a little bit. And Cupsy (Jacobs) has been playing so good, we have the confidence to go after those shots.
The teams had exchanged single points the first two ends before Canada took the lead with a deuce in the fourth. Italy got back within one in the fifth, and Canada went back up by a pair with one in the seventh. That all led to the 10th, where things were looking dicey for Jacobs until he made a great double takeout to finish things off.
“There were a few misses there tonight, it was a little bit of a strange game, and some of our misses the results turned out to be catastrophic, but the rocks were thrown really well,” Jacobs said. “That’s just how it goes sometimes, but we were able to stay positive and bounce back and make some good shots even when things didn’t look great and grind out the win.”
Having a battle against a team like Italy -- former World championship bronze medalists -- was no surprise.
“Ben said early in that game, expect to be tied up and hope we have hammer in 10,” Jacobs said. “Italy is really tough, they’re a great team and they give everybody a great game every time. They’re not having the best week this week and that’s how it goes sometimes, but we know they come out to play us and we’re going to get their best.”
Retornaz, third Amos Mosaner, second Sebastiano Arman and lead Mattia Giovanella fall to 2-5 and are tied for 10th place.
Other results on Tuesday night saw first-place China (Xiaoming Xu) go through a heck of a scare from last-place Austria (Mathias Genner) before taking an 8-7 victory, while Germany (Marc Muskatewitz) stole nine points on their way to an 11-3 six-end win over Japan (Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi) and Czechia (Lukas Klima) defeated the United States (Korey Dropkin) 7-6 in an extra end.
Standings after Draw 11 are as follows:
China (Xu) 6-1
Canada (Jacobs) 5-1
Scotland (Mouat) 5-1
Norway (Ramsfjell) 4-2
Switzerland (Schwaller) 4-2
Sweden (Edin) 4-2
Czechia (Klima) 4-2
United States (Dropkin) 3-3
Germany (Muskatewitz) 3-4
Italy (Retornaz) 2-5
Japan (Yamaguchi) 2-5
Korea (Kim) 0-6
Austria (Genner) 0-7
The top six teams after the round robin advance to the playoff round beginning Saturday.
Canada is back on the ice against Norway at 9 a.m. Wednesday before facing Czechia in the evening draw at 7 p..m.
You can follow along with SportsCage.com’s live blog and find up to the minute scores on www.worldcurling.org.
