MOOSE JAW -- It stands to reason that coaching a rink with the kind of experience Brad Jacobs and his crew have might be a bit of a relaxing job -- with multiple World and Olympic championships under their belt, what more could anyone do to help them win?
Well, as it turns out, plenty.
Jacobs coach Paul Webster and Canadian national coach Jeff Stoughton will both be busy off the ice making sure things go as smoothly as possible for their veteran charges. And while that might not mean passing on basic curling advice like coaches might do with less-decorated rinks, that’s not to say their roles won’t take on extreme importance as the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship kicks off on Saturday at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw.
“I think our job with these guys is to just keep them in check and hold them accountable to what they say they want to do to win,” said Webster, who has guided their team through their wildly successful season, including entering Worlds as the second highest ranked team in the event.
“I've never been where they are, I've never thrown a rock in that type of circumstance, so it’s letting them sort of lead the direction. Then our job, especially mine as team coach, is just to make sure that we're doing all the stuff that we know we need to do to win.”
Both Webster and Stoughton referred to the difficulty of the tournament, with teams playing 12 round robin games followed by qualification games, the semifinals and medal games, a possible 15 games in total.
“It's a tougher event than the Brier in terms of our schedule so all the little things -- the team meetings, the practice, the rest and recovery, keeping people just in check in terms of what the schedule is -- is super important,” Webster said.
Stoughton himself is more than aware of what the haul looks and feels like. A two-time World champion, the Manitoba curling legend claimed his first title in 1996 and also won the championship the last time it was held in Saskatchewan in Regina in 2011.
“We just want to make sure that they stay on track and do Team Jacobs,” Stoughton said. “It's get out of their way, let them do what they do and they'll do it the best. Just trying to keep them on the straight and narrow of our goal of a gold medal.”
A big part of that will be time management. With two World wins on Canadian soil, Stoughton knows all about the demands that will be put on the Jacobs foursome, and successfully dealing with all that can help take off a lot of pressure.
“A lot of it is making sure that the team stays on track and doesn't get too distracted with all the goings-on around them, because you are at home there's a lot of demands on your time,” he said. “This is a long grind, you're playing 12 games in less than a week and then the playoffs start so there's a lot of time where your time is being requested.”
Things get underway on Friday morning with the first set of team practices at Temple Gardens Centre.
The U.S. (Korey Dropkin), South Korea (Hyojun Kim), Japan (Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi) and Switzerland (Yannick Schwaller) are on the ice at 11 a.m. while Jacobs, Italy (Joel Retornaz), Czechia (Lukas Klima) and Norway (Magnus Ramsfjell) practice at 1 p.m.. Defending champion Sweden (Niklas Edin), Scotland (Bruce Mouat), China (Xiaoming Xu), Austria (Mathias Genner) and Germany (Marc Muskatewitz) practice at 3 p.m.
Canada opens their tournament at 2 p.m. on Saturday against Japan, and here’s how their full round robin schedule looks:
Saturday, Mar. 29
2 p.m. -- Japan (Yamaguchi)
7 p.m. -- Germany (Muskatewitz)
Sunday, Mar. 30
2 p.m. -- South Korea (Kim)
Monday, Mar. 31
2 p.m. -- Scotland (Mouat)
Tuesday, Apr. 1
9 a.m. -- Sweden (Edin)
7 p.m. -- Italy (Retornaz)
Wednesday, Apr. 2
9 a.m. -- Norway (Ramsfjell)
7 p.m. -- Czech Republic (Klima)
Thursday, Apr. 3
9 a.m. -- China (Xu)
7 p.m. -- Switzerland (Schwaller)
Friday, Apr. 4
2 p.m. -- Austria (Genner)
7 p.m. -- United States (Dropkin)
SportsCage.com will have draw-by-draw coverage, you can watch all the action on TSN and follow up-to-the-minute scores on .
For Curling Canada’s preview of the event,.
