Staff
If Donald Trump ever truly gets around to building his planned wall between the U.S. and Mexico, he might want to contact Brad Jacobs for some design tips.
Jacobs has been an insurmountable obstacle since 2010 for any other Northern Ontario men’s curling team desiring to reach the Tim Hortons Brier.
Once again, the Sault Ste. Marie resident and defending Olympic men’s champ left the field at the 2017 men’s provincial championship in Thunder Bay wondering about what might have been after a 6-3 victory over Dylan Johnston (Thunder Bay) in Sunday’s final.
That makes it seven titles in eight years for Jacobs, whose only miss in that span came in 2014 by his own choice, when he declined to play for the title while preparing to go to Sochi, Russia for what would be his golden international moment.
It also means another journey to the Brier, this year being held March 4-12 in St. John’s, N.L.
For Johnston’s rink, which includes Devlin’s Mike Badiuk at third and Travis Showalter from Nestor Falls at lead, it was another near-miss in what has been an annual tradition of close but no cigar visits to the provincials.
Johnston fashioned a 4-0 record in the round-robin before getting thumped 8-2 by Jacobs in eight ends Friday in a matchup of two unbeaten teams.
In a bounce-back effort, Johnston stopped Thunder Bay legend Al “The Iceman” Hackner 9-6, but then was upended by Sudbury’s Tanner Horgan 6-4 in his final round-robin game.
That put him second place overall and into a semi-final showdown with Chris Glibota (Copper Cliff) on Saturday evening.
The two rinks traded singles for the first four ends, then deuces over the next two, before Glibota got one in the seventh to lead 5-4.
That quickly was followed by a three-ender for Johnston in the eighth to go in front 7-5.
Glibota tied it in the ninth before Johnston had to make a draw to the four-foot to earn his single in the 10th and prevail 8-7.
In the rematch with Jacobs, the Soo star nabbed two in the second and stole one in the fourth to lead 3-0.
Johnston collected one in the fourth, but Jacobs blanked the sixth and then grabbed a key pair in the seventh to go up 5-1.
A deuce in the eighth brought Johnston closer–only to have Jacobs pick up one in the ninth and then run Johnston out of rocks in the 10th.
In other curling news, the Lorne Jackson rink from Fort Frances takes a run at the Travelers Curling Club Championship Region 1 men’s title this Friday through Sunday in Keewatin.
Jackson and his team of third Derek Jackson, second Mark Pederson, and lead Todd Moxham will be part of a three-team double round-robin that includes Kevin Brown (Kenora) and Tim Warkentin (Keewatin).
The team with the best record after the double round-robin will advance to the provincial championship March 30-April 2 in North Bay.
