St. Albert’s Kennedy will curl for Canada at upcoming Olympics in Italy

CTV News Edmonton's Marek Tkach caught up with a member of the Canadian men's Olympic curling team who's from St. Albert.

It was an exciting weekend for curling fans as the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials came to an end in Halifax.

The teams of Brad Jacobs and Rachel Homan will represent the country at the Winter Olympics in February after winning the star-studded tournament.

And the Sunday win marked yet another trophy on the shelf for one of Jacobs’ team, St. Albert native Marc Kennedy. Earlier in the day, Ottawa’s Homan defeated Christina Black of Halifax in the women’s final.

• The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App

“We got off to a bit of a rocky start, losing our first game, knowing that we probably had to win or go on a bit of a winning streak in order to win it,” Kennedy told CTV News Edmonton on Monday.

And that’s exactly what Team Jacobs did.

The veteran squad figured things out quickly. After losing the opener, they ran the table: six straight wins followed against one of the deepest men’s fields in recent memory.

The run of round-robin victories gave the Jacobs team a bye to the final. A 9-8 victory in Game 1 on Friday was followed by a second straight one-point win over the top-ranked Matt Dunstone of Winnipeg.

“This was the one event that was circled on the calendar four years ago that this team wanted to show up for and win,” Jacobs said.

“To work toward that and have all of the systems and preparation in place to come here and play our best and win is something special.”

Kennedy shone in the fourth end. He made a highlight-reel runback triple-takeout, and Jacobs followed with an angle-raise to salvage a single.

“It was almost like he was possessed with the amount of shots that he was making,” skip Jacobs said of his third. “Marc blacked out in that game from like the first end to the last shot of the game.

“And I’m just so proud of how he played today. Nobody deserves to win this week, I’d say, more than that guy.”

Rounding out Team Jacobs are lead Ben Hebert, second Brett Gallant, alternate Mike Caione and coach Paul Webster.

Kennedy said winning in Halifax was just another step in the process for Team Jacobs.

“We didn’t just build this team to win the Olympic Trials; we tried to build this team to win an Olympic gold medal, so this was another step in that direction,” said Kennedy.

“We’ll try to play that well when we get to Cortina (Italy) and try to bring it home.”

It will be the fourth time Kennedy, whose home rink is the St. Albert Curling Club, will wear the Maple Leaf at the Olympics. He won gold as a member of Kevin Martin’s team at the 2010 Games in Vancouver, bronze in 2022 as part of Brad Gushue’s squad and also played in 2018 Games with skip Kevin Koe.

With files from The Canadian Press