HALIFAX – Northern Ontario has won the Brier twice within the last 30 years, and the team’s current skip missed them both. It is not that Brad Jacobs necessarily had anything better to do, aside from being born.
The 24-year-old was born the same year Al Hackner led curling’s breakout province to its last Canadian men’s title, and he has shown no ill-effects from his relative youth this year. Jacobs orchestrated a 9-3 romp over Quebec in the afternoon draw at the Brier Thursday afternoon in Halifax, sending Northern Ontario into the playoffs with a remarkable 9-2 record.
And as he left the ice, he even had the veteran savvy to know that his record would be the hot topic of conversation.
“I thought that was going to be the first question,” Jacobs said with a grin. “That’s definitely, I would say, a better goal then we had in mind. We kind of maybe thought 8-3 would be a good record or 7-4 — 9-2 definitely surpassed our goal.”
Northern Ontario could face its southern counterparts from Ontario in the 1-2 page playoff if skip Glenn Howard is able to beat Alberta in the round-robin finale Thursday night.
“We wanted to represent Northern Ontario as well as we possibly could,” Jacobs said. “And I think we’ve done a great job of it so far.”
Howard, meanwhile, rolled to his 10th consecutive victory at the Brier on Thursday, securing first place in the round robin while leaving his Ontario rink on track to become the third straight undefeated team at the championship.
The veteran skip was the architect of a 9-3 win over the Northwest Territories/Yukon rink in the afternoon draw, leaving an evening match with Alberta’s Kevin Koe as the last hurdle before the playoffs. Kevin Martin, the newly-minted Olympic gold medallist, posted perfect 13-0 records in each of the previous two Briers.
“It’s confidence,” Howard said. “It just means we’re playing well, and we’re winning all the games we have to. We came in here trying to win every single game we play.”
PEI won its second game of the Brier, pounding New Brunswick 9-4 in the afternoon.
Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton maintained hope of a tie-breaker with a 7-6 win over Saskatchewan in an extra end Thursday. Stoughton, a two-time Brier winner, finished the round-robin with a 7-4 record, and needed Quebec to beat Newfoundland and Labrador in the nightcap to extend his competitive stay in Nova Scotia.
He said his team planned to head out for dinner and watch the last couple of ends, suggesting that watching the game in its entirety would be excruciating.
“We do it to ourselves, so we deserve what we get,” Stoughton said. “You lose four games, it’s usually pretty tough to get in there.”
