This was a magical day for Canadian curling. After going through a period of adversity to begin the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan, Team Brad Jacobs came through with Olympic gold.
The Canadian team comprised of skip Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, third Marc Kennedy of St. Albert, Alberta, second Brett Gallant of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and lead Ben Hebert of Regina, Saskatchewan defeated the 2022 Olympic silver medalist and the world number one Bruce Mouat of Great Britain 9-6 in Saturday’s gold medal game.
High praise for Kennedy
A week ago Kennedy was accused of double touching his rock by Swedish third Oskar Eriksson. The two curlers got involved in a heated exchange, and Kennedy was warned for his inappropriate language by World Curling.
This could have been a very difficult situation for Kennedy and Team Canada. It did not disrupt their focus whatsoever, and the Team Canada chemistry was as high as ever.
Emphasis on team chemistry
Prior to the team leaving for Italy, I spoke to Canadian coach Paul Webster about the importance that the chemistry factor had on this team, and he offered the following response:
“I think the biggest thing when you have these four adult males with the resumes that they came into this team with, it’s the ability to be honest with each other and be accountable both to yourself but to your teammates.
We’ve created an atmosphere on the team that we can have very difficult conversations, pointed questions, and those questions are received by the teammate from the other teammate, and we’re just able to solve problems a lot of teams aren’t.”
Multiple Olympic gold medalists
Kennedy, Hebert and Jacobs are two-time Olympic gold medalists. Kennedy and Hebert won Olympic gold at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver with skip Kevin Martin. Jacobs skipped Canada to gold at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi.
