Team Brad Jacobs sweeps final series to win 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials

Team Brad Jacobs has earned gold at the 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials, presented by Connect Hearing.

The unit had its confidence, grit and determination on display to sweep the best-of-three men’s final series on Saturday evening at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax. Team Jacobs bested Team Matt Dunstone of Winnipeg 6-5 and has earned the right to be nominated to the Canadian Olympic Committee to represent Canada at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan Cortina, Italy.

“Very exciting, I’m extremely glad this event is over, and we won. This is hard, this is a grind,” Jacobs said. “We knew it was going to be that way today against Team Dunstone. You know they’re going to battle hard, and they did…I’m just so proud of my teammates for how they performed here this week.”

Skip Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Mike Caione and coach Paul Webster found their turning point in the eighth end. Leading by two, but unable to control the scoreboard, Jacobs called a difficult double with no hesitation and no surrender, playing a difficult slip double. The Team Jacobs shot knicked off its own in the top eight-foot and directly back into a Team Dunstone counter on the top-four. Meanwhile, the shot stone redirected into another Team Dunstone counter sitting on the back-four. When the dust settled, Team Jacobs sat three and forced Team Dunstone to a single point.

In the ninth end, Team Jacobs chose to give up a steal of one to retain the hammer for the final frame. In the 10th, Jacobs made a lightweight hit to secure the game-winning point and the Montana’s Trials victory.

“Truthfully, on that last shot, if you were to take my heart rate, I don’t think it would have been much over a hundred,” Jacobs said. “I was very excited for the shot, loved the fact that we had a shot for the win, and was super confident that we could make that as long as I threw the right weight and hit the broom with our brushing.”

It was far from the only spectacular shot made by Jacobs, who shot a 91 per cent in the clinching game. In the seventh, Jacobs displayed outstanding finesse to score a deuce. Jacobs made a double with just enough force to remove both Dunstone counters, but not too much to roll out of the house. That score put Team Jacobs up by a point heading into the eighth.

In the fourth end, Team Dunstone created a potential steal opportunity by sinking two wide draws behind cover. This left Jacobs with a challenging light angle runback, needing the stone to curl away from another guard to score. Team Jacobs nearly scored two but ultimately clipped the Dunstone shot far enough to secure a single point.

“I really liked our game plan (in Game 1 Friday). I thought we managed both games really well. Cups (Jacobs) just made big shots and big moments in both of them,” Dunstone said. “The turning point in the game was the fourth end without question. They get a little lucky on the tick off the corner and still make the angle run. We get a steal there, we wrestle the hammer back. We just couldn’t get hammer back in the game and that was the opportunity for it. They still found a way to score, so to me that was the turning point in that one.”

Team Dunstone began the game without the hammer and applied pressure in the first end, forcing Team Jacobs to a single-point hit-and-roll. In the second end, Team Jacobs stole a point after Dunstone was light on a tricky draw attempt. In the third, after Team Jacobs missed a hit, Dunstone responded with a draw for two, tying the game.

More astounding shotmaking was on display again in the sixth, culminating in Jacobs making a draw to the back of the button under cover. Dunstone replied, making a pick, hitting the sliver that he could see to score a single. However, Jacobs replied with an outstanding finesse deuce in the seventh, which is when the team started to pull away.

The team from The Glencoe Club heads to Italy with significant experience. Jacobs will make his second Olympic appearance, having won gold in 2014. Kennedy and Hebert previously won gold together in 2010 and represented Canada at the 2018 Games. In 2022, Gallant earned bronze with Kennedy as the team’s alternate. Gallant will play double-duty in 2026, having also earned the right to represent Canada in mixed doubles alongside his wife, Jocelyn Peterman.

“I’m just lucky to have really good teammates. Between Jocelyn and these three guys, it’s pretty special to be able to curl with them,” Gallant said. “I mean, it’s been a lot of hard work over the years to kind of get to achieve some of these goals, so to see some of it pay off, it’s an amazing feeling. I’m really looking forward to kind of doing double duty over there.”

Canada’s first game in the men’s competition at the Olympic Winter Games is on Feb. 11 against Germany.

Scoring, standings and statistics for the 2025 Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials are available by CLICKING HERE.

This story will be available in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/fr/2025trials/nouvelles.