Taylor Shire
Regina Leader-Post
Even though they are in their first season together, the men’s curling foursome of Brad Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert have been enjoying some undeniable chemistry.
After winning the Montana’s Brier in Kelowna, B.C., Jacobs and company earned the right to earn the right to represent Team Canada at the World Men’s Curling Championship this week in Moose Jaw.
And so far at worlds, the Alberta-based squad leads the field through nine draws with an 8-1 record and appear poised to make a strong playoff run this weekend.
In fact, that’s exactly where they hoped they would be last April when Kennedy, Gallant and Hebert decided to part ways with former skip Brendan Bottcher and recruit Jacobs, the 2013 Brier champion and 2014 Olympic gold medalist who skipped a team out of Manitoba last season.
“Brad is everything we thought he was going to be,” Hebert said this week. “We needed that change. We needed that energy, spark, leadership. We got it with him.
“It’s been amazing. We’ve made a lot of player personnel decisions over the years that haven’t worked out. You look back and you’re like, ‘Man, that was not as good as we thought it was going to be.’
“And so when they do work out, you’re pretty satisfied with the decisions because you can make team decisions where you think you’re stacked or you’re not stacked — and there’s been players I’ve played with that maybe you didn’t think we’re going to be amazing and they turned out to be amazing — it can go both ways, right?”
After playing together from 2006-18 with skips Kevin Martin (2006-14) and Kevin Koe (2014-18), Hebert and Kennedy rejoined forces for the 2022-23 season with Gallant and Bottcher.
The team finished third at the Brier in 2023 and again in 2024 before the front three decided to make a change at skip and bring in Jacobs, whom Kennedy played with from 2018-22.
“I think my past experience with Brad certainly helped kind of knowing what he would bring to the team,” Kennedy, 43, said leading up to the worlds. “And then kind of trying to mix my history with Brad and the current team and stability that we had with Brett and Ben and (coach Paul Webster).
“We saw how it might work and I think it’s worked better than we ever anticipated.
“It probably took a little time to get going, but right from the beginning, the foundation was created with practice habits and work ethic. And Brad probably pushed the envelope for us and brought us to an even higher level. He really led by example with just how hard he worked to try to fit into the group and be our leader.
“And he did that, and he got to a point with this team where we were ready to go through a wall for him at any given minute. And so that evolution, that trust in each other, the belief in the service to one another, we were really out there trying to win for each other and that’s an extra level of strength when it comes to a team.
“We believed in him, we knew that he believed in us, and we were out there playing extremely hard for each other. Add that to everything that we’ve worked on mechanically, technically, strategically, to just try to be the best team in the world, and you’re starting to see it all come together at the perfect time.”
For Jacobs, who went 12 years between Brier championships, this season has been exactly what he had hoped for when he decided to make the move to the Alberta-based team.
“Everything feels validated,” said Jacobs, a 39-year-old Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. product who represented Northern Ontario at 14 Briers from 2007-22. “Everything felt earned and deserved.
“All of the hard work that we’ve put in, the hard conversations we’ve had as a team in order to try to improve, I feel like our team has been getting stronger and stronger by the month since we formed this team.”
While winning the Brier was one of the team’s goals, the next one would be winning a gold medal at worlds on Sunday in Moose Jaw.
The third — and arguably biggest — goal is winning the Canadian Men’s Curling Trials in November and earning the right to represent Canada at the 2026 Olympics in Italy.
All four players have been to the Olympics before with Hebert and Kennedy winning gold in 2010, followed by Jacobs winning gold in 2014 while Gallant claimed bronze in 2022 with skip Brad Gushue. Hebert and Kennedy also represented Canada in 2018 but finished fourth.
“Showing to ourselves and to everyone else that having self-belief is a big part of it,” said Hebert, 42. “If you’ve never done it before, hard to believe you can do it, right?
“We just beat all the teams in Canada to come here (to worlds) and we’ve got to do that again in November if we want to go the Olympics. So that’s what we want to do.”
