Jacobs focused on return to Olys

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This article was published 26/11/2021 (1600 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SASKATOON — Brad Jacobs has the eye of the tiger — or timber wolf, for a guy from Northern Ontario — at the Canadian Olympic Trials this week.

His teammates recognized it early, and now opponents and spectators are noticing the fierce glint.

“Brad’s got it in his eyes right now and we just kind of stay out of his way and let him go,” Ryan Harnden said Friday morning. “The preparation is there… the commitment is there.”

Jacobs is shooting the lights out at SaskTel Centre, posting a 92 per cent cumulative percentage prior to the final men’s draw of the round-robin Friday night.

The Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., curler was three points higher than the next skip, Brad Gushue, while outshooting his skipping counterpart in six of seven round-robin games, to propel his crew to a 6-1 record and a guaranteed playoff position.

Jacobs stormed to a 9-7 victory over Mike McEwen of West St. Paul in the afternoon draw. He faced Tanner Horgan of Kingston, Ont., in the late draw.

Charging into the top three was the prime objective all along for Jacobs, the Harnden brothers, E.J. (second) and Ryan (lead), and the relative newcomer, third Marc Kennedy.

“Huge step. Certainly, securing a playoff spot was a goal of ours coming in here. We’ve achieved that now and it feels great,” said the 35-year-old shot-caller.

Young and brash, the team (including former Winnipegger Ryan Fry at third) won the Olympic Trials in the Manitoba capital in late 2013 and went on to capture gold at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Jacobs covets another chance to represent the Canadian flag and, potentially, stand on the podium in Beijing in three short months.

Jacobs missed the Trials playoffs in Ottawa in 2018.

In Saskatoon, each player has done his best to filter out thoughts of the final prize and focus, instead, on the minute details surrounding every shot delivered.

“We’re really just trying to play loose and not think too far ahead. That is so important when there’s so much on the line in a big event like this,” Jacobs said. “That’s allowed us to really just be ourselves, and that’s important.”

“We’re just really feeling comfortable with the playing conditions. It’s feeling pretty easy out there at the moment, very predictable. When you’re as comfortable with the playing conditions as we are, you can make a lot of shots and that’s what we’ve been doing.”

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Interestingly, an early departured from a recent Grand Slam tour event forced the veteran squad to take a long, hard look at its readiness for the monumental nine-teams Trials. Jacobs had streaked to four consecutive finals on the cash bonspiel circuit before going 1-3 at the prestigious National earlier this month in Chestermere, Alta., a definite jolt to the collective system.

“It was the best thing that could have happened. We were having a season where we were playing pretty good but we were getting quite a few misses from other teams,” said Kennedy. “In Chestermere, it was teams playing really well against us. We realized we needed to pick up our games, we needed to prepare harder and we had to realize that this is not gonna come easy.

“We really put the focus on making sure we prepared as hard as we could. In hindsight, it was probably a blessing in disguise to have that event.”

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell