Taylor Shire
Regina Leader-Post
Ben Hebert is rocking curling’s version of a playoff beard this week at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Moose Jaw.
In fact, the Team Canada lead has been growing out his beard since a bonspiel in January when skip Brad Jacobs noticed Hebert had more facial hair than usual.
“I’ve never grown a beard in my life and then Lloydminster this year — I hadn’t shaved for a few days; just being lazy — and Brad’s like, ‘Can you grow a beard?’ I’m like, ‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve never even tried, but I don’t think I can grow a beard,’ ” said Hebert.
“He’s like, ‘Let’s try and grow Brier beards.’ ”
And so Hebert, Jacobs, second Brett Gallant and third Marc Kennedy, who opted for chest hair, decided to keep growing the extra hair through the Montana’s Brier in Kelowna in March.
And when Team Jacobs won the Canadian men’s curling championship, there was no doubt they were keeping the beards for worlds.
“Mine was horrendous,” said Hebert. “I had to hide for three weeks but now that it’s fully in, it’s not so bad.
“Brad was like, ‘Well — let’s see — if it looks horrendous by the Brier, you have to shave it. And he said it was looking good, so I kept it.
“And yeah, we’re running the beards until we’re out of it.”
So far this week at the worlds, Canada more than in the mix to be in contention for the gold medal on Sunday.
After starting off 3-0, the Canadians suffered their first loss to world No. 1 ranked Team Scotland on Monday before rebounding with an 8-6 win over defending champion Niklas Edin and Team Sweden on Tuesday.
Following a 4-2 win against Italy on Tuesday night, Canada beat Norway 8-3 and Czech Republic 8-3 on Wednesday to improve to 7-1 to sit atop the field. Hebert, Jacobs, Kennedy and Gallant now have four remaining round robin games before Saturday’s playoff round begins.
For the 42-year-old Hebert, playing in Moose Jaw just down the road from where he grew up in Regina, this event has been the thrill of a lifetime.
And the playoffs haven’t even arrived yet.
“Dream situation all around,” said Hebert, who has called Alberta home for the last two decades. “Playing with the team we’re playing with, how well we’re playing, the way we won the Brier in Kelowna and then coming back home for worlds.
“Great to see family and friends. Crowd has been awesome. Media has been awesome. Everything’s been awesome. It’s a 10 out of 10 situation so far, and hopefully we can shake a few more wins out of this and get into the playoffs.”
Hebert’s teammates have also been noticing the extra support they’ve been getting.
“We’ve been calling him the premier of Saskatchewan over the last couple weeks with the amount of people we know that are going to come and support him,” said Kennedy, who played with Hebert from 2006-18 and again from 2022 until now, said before the tournament.
“He’s one of the hardest working guys. Nobody wants to win more than Ben Hebert and he makes the people around him so much better and makes them believe that they’re even better than they are sometimes.
“He’s going to have all of Saskatchewan behind our team, which is terrific.”
Ultimately, a gold medal on Sunday will make this tournament that much sweeter for Hebert, as the five-time Brier champ looks to add to his resume which also includes an Olympic gold medal (Vancouver 2010), two world golds (2008 and 2016) and two world silvers (2009 and 2019).
And to do it on home soil — in his home province no less — would be the cherry on top.
“When I was young, like 23 or 24, going away and going to Korea or going to Switzerland, that was cool because I’d never seen the world,” said Hebert, who won world championships in North Dakota and Switzerland. “This is the best part of the world for curling, and this is right where you want to be.
“And every team would say that. We don’t get a tenth of the fans anywhere else (internationally), and that atmosphere for me, a guy that’s played in packed houses to go to a world championship and play in an empty barn and no claps, that’s not going to get the energy going for me.
“This is right where we want to be.”
tshire@postmedia.com
