Jacobs one win from history

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This article was published 07/03/2015 (4077 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CALGARY — Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs is one win away from completing what would be an unprecedented curling hat trick — two Canadian men’s curling championships and an Olympic gold medal in three successive years.

Jacobs, the 2013 Brier champion and the 2014 Olympic gold medallist, advanced to Sunday’s Brier final with a 7-5 win at Scotiabank Saddledome Friday night over Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue in the Page playoff 1 vs. 2 game.

Advantage

Trailing 3-1, Jacobs took advantage of a missed freeze attempt by Gushue with Newfoundland’s last rock of the fifth end to play a tap for three that put Jacobs back in control of a game that to that point had seen Northern Ontario chasing in every end.

Jacobs was 9-0 this week when leading after five ends and he ran that to 10-0 with an efficient final five ends that saw Gushue held to singles with the hammer in the sixth and eighth ends.

Another Jacobs tap-back in the ninth end, this one for a deuce, put Northern Ontario up 7-5 coming home. Jacobs sealed the deal in the 10th end with a double-takeout that ran Newfoundland out of rocks.

Gushue will now await the winner of today’s Page playoff 3 vs. 4 game between Team Canada’s John Morris and Saskatchewan’s Steve Layton.

The winner of the 3 vs. 4 game (2 p.m., TSN) will advance to face Gushue in Saturday evening’s semi-final (7 p.m., TSN), while the loser will compete in Sunday morning’s bronze-medal game against the loser of the semi-final.

Team Canada will head into the 3-4 game riding a 5-1 run since third Pat Simmons replaced Morris at skip after a 2-3 start.

Gushue is playing in his 12th Brier this week, but he is still seeking to add his first Brier title to an Olympic gold medal won in 2006. He has played in only one previous Brier final over the years, losing in 2007 to Ontario’s Glenn Howard.

Whatever happens on championship weekend, the country is witnessing what feels like a changing of the guard in Canadian men’s curling.

This is the first time since the Brier playoff system started in 1980 that there has not been an entry in the Brier playoffs from either Manitoba, Ontario or Alberta — the country’s three traditional men’s curling powerhouses.

What’s more, there have only been three previous years in which the Brier final was played without the participation of at least one of Manitoba, Alberta or Ontario. Those three provinces have won 27 of the last 35 Briers.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek