It’s on to the playoffs for Brad Jacobs and Team Canada in men’s curling
Playing with the overall team consistency they have shown all week, Brad Jacobs and Team Canada won their third straight game to secure a playoff spot Tuesday evening in men’s curling at Milano Cortina 2026.
Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert defeated reigning world champion Bruce Mouat of Great Britain 9-5 to improve to 6-1 and qualify for Friday’s semifinals. Yannick Schwaller of Switzerland also qualified for the playoffs by beating Marc Muskatewitz of Germany 8-4 to remain unbeaten at 7-0.
“It’s huge; it’s huge,” Jacobs said of the outcome. “We knew six wins was a big number. It’s been a big number in Olympic men’s curling for many years now. We wanted to win that game. So proud of the guys for the way they performed in getting it done today.”
The win not only secured Canada’s playoff berth but it also put Great Britain in danger of missing the playoffs. Mouat is now 4-4 and in a four-team fight for the final two semifinal berths.
“Not only that,” Jacobs said of the bonus outcome of his team’s win. “Bruce Mouat’s team, setting them back to four losses is equally as important, in my opinion, as it was getting to six wins.”
Mouat is the No. 1 ranked men’s team in the world and had beaten Jacobs 13 times in their previous 15 meetings. But when it came to perhaps the biggest meeting of all, Jacobs and his teammates jumped on Great Britain early, shrugged off a brief mid-game surge by Mouat to grab a 5-4 lead after six ends, and took control by scoring three in the seventh and stealing singles in the eighth and ninth.
Canada scored two in the first end and the teams traded singles before Great Britain got its game-equalling deuce in the fourth. Mouat forced Jacobs to draw for one in the fifth before scoring two in the sixth when Jacobs rolled too far on a hit-and-roll.
Two near-perfect shots by Kennedy forced Mouat to try a right runback triple with his final stone. He got only one Canadian stone and left Jacobs a draw for the game-changing three. A nose hit by Mouat on a hit-and-roll in the eighth and a missed double by the British skip in the ninth led to the Canadian steals.
Canada curled 85 percent as a team for the third straight game. The foursome hasn’t curled under 85 percent in any game, even in their one loss to Switzerland.
Mouat came into Cortina as the pre-tournament favourite but his team has struggled to find the consistency they have shown on the world circuit for the last two years. The top four teams after the completion of the round robin Thursday will advance to the semifinals.
Joel Retornaz of Italy gave the hometown crowd plenty to cheer about again with an 8-5 win over Daniel Casper and the United States and Niklas Edin of Sweden beat Magnus Ramsfjell of Norway 7-4.
The results left Italy and Norway, at 4-3, along with the U.S. and Great Britain, at 4-4, looking to gain the final playoff spots in the last two draws. Italy will play Canada Wednesday afternoon, and Norway plays the Jacobs crew in the final draw Thursday morning.