Team Canada claims bronze at the 2025 World Men’s Curling Championship

Team Canada—composed of skip Brad Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, and alternate Tyler Tardi—defeated China’s Team Xiaoming Xu 11-2 to secure the bronze medal at the 2025 World Men’s Curling Championship in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

The victory, which marked their 12th win of the tournament, was fuelled by a dominant start and a five-point breakout in the fourth end on Sunday at the Temple Gardens Centre.

Jacobs’ rink came out strong as Jacobs made the split with his first stone of the game to set up a score of three for Canada in the opening end. In the third end, Canada put more rocks in play and Xu had to draw against four counters to pick up his first point.

In the fourth end, China missed an in-off that allowed Jacobs to make a hit for five points. In the fifth end, Xu’s draw came up short, allowing Canada to steal two more points. Canada was firmly in control with a 10-1 lead at the fifth-end break.

“Coming out of the gate strong with a three was awesome,” Jacobs said. “And then the five obviously broke the game wide open.”

China managed to score a single point in the sixth end, but it wasn’t enough to close the gap. Heading into the seventh end, Canada led 10-2 and finished things up with a single point in the eighth to win it 11-2.

The Chinese players offered to concede after the seventh end but the umpires advised that the eight-end minimum was required. It made for an unusual finish as players quickly threw their stones just to officially complete the proceedings.  

This marks Canada’s 58th medal of all tme at the World Men’s Curling Championship. Canada’s last title at this event came in 2017 when Brad Gushue was victorious in Edmonton, AB.

In the semifinal, the home team, 11-1 in the round robin, bowed 7-4 to the only team it lost to earlier this week, Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat. Scotland will play for their second gold medal on Canadian soil in three years Sunday at 11 p.m. ET against Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller after winning the world title in 2023 in Ottawa.

“We tried,” said Jacobs, who barely missed on a slash double takeout in the 10th end for the potential victory. “What can I say? We fought. We battled. We tried. They were better than us today. But we’re going to regroup here and come out and try to get ourselves on the podium and get a bronze medal.”

It was a strong effort from both teams Saturday. The Canadians outcurled the Scots percentage-wise 93-89, with the front end of Hebert and Gallant scoring at 100 and 99 respectively. But in the end, it was Scotland’s vice-skip Grant Hardie who dictated the game in the early going with a series of precision shots that turned Canada’s first-end hammer advantage into a 4-2 Scottish lead through six ends, as he repeatedly snuffed out Canadian opportunities to score multiple points.

READ: Team Canada playing in semis at World Men’s Curling Championship

In the other semifinal, the Swiss had little trouble defeating China 7-3. Switzerland scored deuces with the last rock in the first and fifth ends, and added a stolen deuce in the sixth, and will try to win its first gold medal since Team Markus Eggler prevailed in 1992 at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.