Jacobs team continues steady march towards Milano Cortina 2026 playoffs

Brad Jacobs and Team Canada continued its almost methodical march towards a playoff spot in men’s curling with an 8-2 win over Czechia Monday afternoon at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Games.

Moving away from the distraction of the finger-touching controversy of the past two days, Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert and alternate Tyler Tardi scored singles in the first three ends and three in the sixth.

Jacobs, the 2014 gold medallist, set the tone in the first end, drawing the button against three Czechia stones to get Canada off on the right foot. With their focus clearly on the task ahead to ensure there was no letdown against winless Czechia, Canada curled 85 percent as a team. The backend was especially sharp as Jacobs finished at 88 percent and Kennedy at 89.

The win moved Canada to 5-1 and alone in second place behind unbeaten Switzerland (5-0).

Canada brought in alternate Tyler Tardi in the seventh end to finish the game and give Hebert a break. The 27-year-old, who regularly curls with the Kevin Koe team, promptly made both his draw shots.

“I actually wasn’t expecting to go out,” Tardi said of his sudden insertion. “It’s good to see the guys rolling and I don’t want to interrupt their flow as we get closer to the playoffs. To be honest, that was the last thing on my mind. Obviously, a thrill to have that experience. It was my dream just to sit on the bench all week, so to actually have the chance to step on the ice it’s amazing to say the least.”

The two-time World junior champion made all four of his draw shots and while he was pleased with that, he wasn’t happy with how he was supporting the team earlier in the event.

“At the start I wasn’t overly happy with how I was involving myself, not doing enough and not getting the best of them from behind the scenes,” he explained. “I think the China game (6-3 win Sunday evening) was just big switch for all of us. We all just took a different gear in how we’re all supporting each other and getting the best out of each other.”

It showed Monday afternoon.

It was a difficult game for Czechia skip Lukas Klima. He missed some fairly routine shots in the early ends but was also forced into trying several extremely difficult shots to prevent Canada from multiple scoring ends.

Eventually, however, the task became too difficult. After finally breaking through on the scoreboard with one in the fifth end, Czechia surrendered three in the sixth to basically end any hopes of a comeback.

Klima made a good draw to nearly freeze to a Canadian counter behind cover. But Jacobs, who had not missed a take-out on eight previous attempts, calmly executed an angle raise to eliminate the Czechia stone and count three. The teams exchanged singles through the eighth end when Czechia shook hands.

Xu Xiaoming and Team China stole two in the third end and scored four in the fifth to hand Joel Retornaz and Italy its third loss, 11-4, Norway (Magnus Ramsfjell) stole two in the eighth to upset pre-Games favourite Great Britain (Bruce Mouat) 7-6 and Germany (Marc Muskatewitz) beat Sweden (Niklas Edin) 7-3.

With four draws remaining, Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller leads the standings at 5-0 followed by Canada 5-1, Norway and the United States at 4-2, Great Britain 4-3, Italy and Germany 3-3, Sweden and China 1-5 and Czechia 0-6.

The top four teams from the round robin advance to the Thursday’s semifinals.