Team Jacobs upend short-handed Team McEwen in extra at Champions Cup
Brad Jacobs grabbed the victory in his opening game of the Humpty’s Champions Cup as his crew from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., look to pick up where they left off in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling.
Jacobs captured his seventh career Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling men’s title and third in a row at the Meridian Canadian Open in January 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic brought a year-long hiatus to the series.
Now back in the Slam of things, Team Jacobs needed an extra frame but put together a solid end to edge short-handed Team Mike McEwen of Winnipeg 4-3 in Thursday’s third draw at Calgary’s WinSport Arena.
“We’re all really excited to be able to throw our gear back on and get out in a Grand Slam Sportsnet event,” Jacobs said. “We’ve had a lot of success as a team in these events. It’s just really great to be able to get together, compete and hopefully, put together a great performance this week.”
Jacobs, who held the hammer in the extra, sat three stones including one parked on the button and didn’t need to throw his last as Reid Carruthers was unable to curl enough to remove the shot rock.
“(Lead) Ryan Harnden put two rocks in great spots to start off,” Jacobs said. “We kind of peeled our way to the last couple shots and got a break when Reid was a little wide and a little heavy, had an opportunity at a double and after that, it was pretty tough on him.”
Carruthers has moved up to skip with Mike McEwen staying home to be with his wife, Team Jones lead Dawn McEwen, who gave birth to the couple’s second child in the morning. Tyler Tardi of Langley, B.C., is filling in at third and second Derek Samagalski rounds out the trio as lead Colin Hodgson opted out of competing in the two Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling events.
It’s the second bubble event for Jacobs after representing Northern Ontario in last month’s Brier and finishing tied for sixth in the championship pool with a 7-5 record.
“It was a good game to get back into the groove,” Jacobs said. “Obviously, we’d been off the ice for a little while. Reider’s team played very well despite playing only with three guys, playing short-handed. We won the game, it feels great, one down and a bunch more to go.”
The Humpty’s Champions Cup is the first of back-to-back Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling events featuring 12 of the top men’s teams and 12 of the top women’s teams from around the world. The series is testing a new rule at the Humpty’s Champions Cup called the no tick zone. A rock touching the centre line, in the free guard zone, may not be moved off the centre line by the opposing team until the sixth rock of the end.
Humpty’s Champions Cup: Scores and standings | Draw schedule | Broadcast schedule
Elsewhere in women’s action, Ottawa’s Team Rachel Homan downed Team Elena Stern of Switzerland 7-3 to split their games on opening day. Homan, who gave birth to daughter Bowyn just three weeks ago, lost 6-3 in the morning draw to Team Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man., in a repeat of February’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts final.
“It was great,” Homan said. “Obviously, when you open up with a loss you really need a win in your second game. We played really well this morning, it came down to a runback and (Einarson) made a great shot to win that game. Then we had another strong performance this afternoon and thankfully, we got the win this time.”
Homan’s quick recovery has draw praise from the curling community.
“It’s pretty impressive,” Jacobs said. “We commend her for being able to do that and that’s pretty neat. Obviously, she’s very athletic.”
Team Homan are using Goldline’s United We Curl brushes during the Humpty’s Champions Cup. The United We Curl brushes were designed by Black and Indigenous curlers to bring attention to their cultures and raise awareness for inclusion in curling.
“We are really excited to be part of United We Curl and honoured to be using the broom designed by Deb Martin,” Homan said. “Deb’s design honours Black excellence, hope and joy. It is an important issue for us and supporting people that are largely not represented in our sport.”
Team Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland picked up a 5-3 victory over Winnipeg’s Team Jennifer Jones to kick off their title defence. Jones stole a point in six to steal the lead, however, her last rock in seven came up light allowing Team Tirinzoni fourth Alina Pätz to draw for three points. Alternate Lisa Weagle is playing lead for Dawn McEwen. Tirinzoni captured the 2019 Humpty’s Champions Cup in Saskatoon.
RCF’s Team Alina Kovaleva scored three in the first and bookended another trio in the seventh to close out a 9-5 win over Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa.
Round-robin play continues with the fourth draw Thursday at 10 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. local time on Sportsnet ONE and Sportsnet 360 with online streaming at Sportsnet Now (Canada) and Yare (international).
Pool play runs through to Saturday with quarterfinals and semifinals on Sunday and both finals set for Monday. The Princess Auto Players’ Championship begins Tuesday.
