MOOSE JAW — The host team is standing tall at the BKT World Men's Curling Championship.
It's the 12 teams below Canada in the round-robin standings that have been somewhat unpredictable.
Brad Jacobs and his Calgary-based side of Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert secured a playoff spot Thursday with a pair of wins to improve to 9-1. Canada dumped China's Xiaoming Xu 8-2 in the morning draw and topped Switzerland's Yannick Schwaller 10-4 in the evening.
"It'd be really nice to sneak into the 1-2 spot and finish this thing strong going into the playoffs," Jacobs said. "And then just lay it all out there on the weekend. That would be fun."
Schwaller has also been in strong form but struggled against Canada. Ranked a whisker behind Jacobs at No. 4 in the world, the Swiss side never had the lead after giving up a deuce in the second end.
Canada tacked on three more points in the fifth and iced the victory with a four-ender in the eighth.
"That was maybe our best game of the year," Hebert said. "That's as good as we can play. Not very many misses by us."
Schwaller, who dumped Italy's Joel Retornaz 8-3 in the morning, moved into a second-place tie with Scotland's Bruce Mouat and Sweden's Niklas Edin at 7-3.
Mouat's side holds the No. 1 spot in the world rankings but has been inconsistent at the Temple Gardens Centre.
Scotland handed Canada its only loss but was also shelled earlier in the week by Czechia's Lukas Klima. Sweden dumped Scotland 10-4 in the morning and later edged Czechia 5-4.
Edin is traditionally a slow starter at this nine-day event. The defending champion — who's looking for a record eighth world title — seems to have loosened up as he deals with nagging back and shoulder issues.
China surprisingly led the round-robin standings a couple days ago but the Canada defeat and a 7-6 loss to Japan's Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi left the team at 6-4. Norway's Magnus Ramsfjell was also 6-4 after beating Japan 11-5.
With the top six teams advancing to the weekend playoffs, Czechia was just outside the cutline at 6-5 with three sessions left on Friday.
Among the disappointments, the former world No. 1 Retornaz, reigning European champion Marc Muskatewitz of Germany and American Korey Dropkin were at 4-6.
Japan was 4-7 and South Korea's Hyojun Kim and Austria's Mathias Genner were 1-9.
"There's a couple teams that you would have thought would be near the top of the leaderboard at the start of this week that aren't," said Canada coach Paul Webster. "It's not that they're not playing the greatest, it's just the other teams are (solid).
"I love it. The parity is something we need in all sport, and I'm happy it's in curling."
The Canadians controlled their game in the morning session. Canada jumped out to an early 4-1 lead and China conceded early after giving up a second straight steal in the seventh end.
"I think we came out with really good energy this morning, which is a little bit of a tough thing to do this late in the week," Jacobs said. "But every time I think we can spare a few ends (it) saves our bodies and saves our minds a little bit, so that's good."
Qualification games and semifinals are on tap Saturday. Medal games will be played Sunday.
Canada is looking to win gold at this event for the first time since Brad Gushue's victory in 2017 in Edmonton.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 3, 2025.
Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press
