‘Excited nerves’: Canada opens men’s curling worlds with win over Japan

Canada's second, Brett Gallant yells instructions at the World Men's Curling Championship in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan on Saturday, March 29, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Brad Jacobs and Team Canada got off on the right foot defeating Japan 7 - 3 to open the 2025 BKT Tires Men’s Curling World Championships Saturday in Moose Jaw, Sask.

“[There was] a little bit of excited nerves coming into this game,” Jacobs told reporters following the match. “As the building continued to fill up and fill up during practice just before we got started, we all started to get goose bumps.”

It was a slow start on the scoreboard with three blank ends to begin the tournament.

“Our objective going into that game was if our opponent threw it in the rings, we were going to try to waste an end and get a blank,” Jacobs said.

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In the second, with Canada sitting two, a critical triple takeout by Japan’s fourth and vice-skip Riku Yanagisawa forced Jacobs to settle for the blank in that frame.

“We did try to generate deuces, but it just didn’t work out,” Jacobs added. “We do want to put points on the scoreboard - blanking all the ends isn’t fun for us either. And I know that’s not super entertaining for the fans.”

In the fourth end, Jacobs – who had the hammer – lied one. But a miss by Yanagisawa on his last rock opened the door for Canada to score the first two points of the draw.

Japan would score a single in the fifth, but that is as close as they would get after Canada took full control the next end.

Jacobs had an easy draw which only had to touch the rings to score three in the sixth end to go up 5 – 1.

Canada would force the issue in the seventh end, with four stones in the house against no Japanese rocks.

With the hammer, Yanagisawa would escape the frame without surrendering a steal but was still behind by three points.

Holding the final stone in the eighth, Jacobs would perfectly execute the take-out and score two, making the score 7 - 2.

The Canada skipper says the crowd’s reaction to shots like that are what he and his team are trying to create.

“We made a couple big shots finally later in the game” he said. “And to hear the crowd kind of start to get into it and erupt a little bit makes us want to just make more shots for the fans and keep them going all week.”

A single point from Japan in the ninth would be moot as Canada put a bow on their first win of the tournament.

Lead Ben Hebert says the team has been thrust into important games early in the tournament.

“There aren’t any non-important games,” he said. “I wish there was a couple we could mail in but yeah, there are tough games at the start to [we need to] figure out the ice.”

Canada plays Germany Saturday night and Korea Sunday afternoon to round out the weekend draw play.