(by Jonathan Brazeau)
SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — The season was barely 10 minutes over and Brad Jacobs was already making big plans for the fall.
Jacobs fell 4-3 to Kevin Martin in the Grand Slam of Curling Players’ Championship final on Sunday, concluding a year that saw his team reach the peak of the sporting world by capturing gold at the Sochi Olympics.
The 28-year-old Jacobs missed out on capping his dream year by claiming his first Grand Slam title but he’s now looking forward to winning one in his hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., which hosts the National in November.
“Any time you get a chance to play in front of your hometown, it’s amazing,” Jacobs said. “We played in the Soo a couple of years ago and it was a lot of fun but now it’s going to be even more fun being Brier and Olympic champions. I’m sure the support for that Slam is going to be unbelievable and it’s going to be the highlight of our year.
“We intend on playing in all of the Slams next season … and to have it in our hometown is very special.”
It was a year ago, at the Players’ Championship no less, that set the wheels in motion for Jacobs’s journey. Even though the team won the Brier in 2013 and earned silver at the world championships, his team needed to reach the Players’ finals to guarantee a spot in the Canadian Olympic Trials based on ranking points over the past two years.
Jacobs lost to Glenn Howard in the semis but he still had one more shot to qualify through the pre-trial tournament featuring a challenging field that included defending Olympic champion John Morris (the former Team Martin third who was skipping a new team) and 2006 Turin gold medallist Brad Gushue.
Team Jacobs missed the first two Grand Slam events of the season to focus on their Olympic bid and it paid off. They grabbed one of the two spots up for grabs in the pre-trials and then went on a tear at the Roar of the Rings, winning all seven round-robin games and defeating Morris’s team 7-5 in the final to punch their tickets to Sochi.
They didn’t get off to a hot start in Sochi with a 1-2 record but Team Jacobs found their mark and won eight games in a row to take that giant leap together onto the top of the podium.
“It was a dream come true this last season,” Jacobs said.
While other skips like Howard, Kevin Koe and Jeff Stoughton retool their lineups, Jacobs confirmed his team — consisting of third Ryan Fry, second E.J. Harnden, lead Ryan Harnden and himself — will stick together for another four years as they plan for the next Olympic quadrennial cycle and attempt to defend their gold medal at the 2018 Games in South Korea.
“Obviously (winning gold) is something we’ll always remember and at the same time our team is really looking forward to the next four years that we’re going to play together,” Jacobs said. “That’s our plan.”
Although Jacobs has his eyes set on next season — and the next four years — he said he now intends on taking a break as the team has been on a whirlwind nation-wide tour since winning the gold.
“We’ve been extremely busy, we’ve had a lot of success,” Jacobs said. “I would have liked to have got this last one (at the Players’) but it wasn’t meant to be so I’m really just looking forward to relaxing this summer, doing a lot of training off the ice and getting back at it next year.”