Canada’s quest to win gold for the first time since 2017 gets underway Saturday afternoon when the 2025 BKT World Men’s Curling Championship kicks off at the Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw.
Newly crowned Montana’s Brier champions Team Brad Jacobs of Calgary has an opening-draw assignment Saturday at 2 p.m. (all times Central Standard) against Japan’s Team Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, and then will be back on the ice Saturday at 7 p.m. against European champs Team Marc Muskatewitz of Germany.
Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Tyler Tardi, team coach Paul Webster and national coach Jeff Stoughton are looking to bring Canada its first world men’s championship since Team Brad Gushue (with Gallant at second) prevailed in 2017 in Edmonton.
Team Canada will close out the opening weekend with a Sunday matinee against South Korea’s Team Jaebeom Lee.
There will no shortage of medal contenders on hand in Moose Jaw for an event that not only will decide a world champion, but also will determine most of the countries that will be competing for gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy. The combined results of the 2024 and 2025 World Championships will determine seven countries that join hosts Italy in 2026. Two more countries will come out of the 2025 Olympic Qualification Event that will take place in December in Kelowna, B.C.
The Canadian team features three players — Kennedy (2016, ’08), Gallant (2017) and Hebert (2016, ’08) — who are former world champions. Jacobs skipped Canada to silver in 2013.
Leading the field is reigning world champ Team Niklas Edin of Sweden, who beat Team Gushue in last year’s final at Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Edin himself is a seven-time world champion.
Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat arrives as the No. 1 team in the World Rankings (Team Jacobs is third), having won gold two years ago in Ottawa.
Canada will face both of those squads early on, meeting the Scots Monday at 2 p.m. and the Swedes Tuesday at 9 a.m.
Other teams in the field are Austria’s Team Mathias Genner, China’s Team Xiaonubg Xu, Team Lukas Klima of the Czech Republic, Italy’s Team Joel Retornaz, Norway’s Team Magnus Ramsfjell, Team Yannick Schwaller of Switzerland and Team Korey Dropkin of the United States.
It will be the 66th edition of the world men’s championship; Canada has won a leading 36 world men’s titles, and Canadian teams have reached the podium 57 times in those 65 previous world championships, collecting 14 silver and seven bronze to go along with the gold medals.
The 2025 BKT World Men’s Championship will feature a 13-team field. Round-robin play will run through to Friday, April 4, with the top six teams making the playoffs; no tiebreakers will be played, so ties for playoff spots will be broken based on head-to-head results, and if that doesn’t resolve the tie, then the pre-game Last-Shot Draw distances.
The top two teams from round-robin play will be seeded directly into the semifinals on April 5 at 3 p.m., while third will play sixth and fourth will play fifth in the qualifying-round games earlier on April 5, at 9 a.m.
The winners of the qualifying-round games will advance to the semifinals. The semifinal winners will play for gold on April 6 at 3 p.m., with the semifinal losers battling for bronze on April 6 at 9 a.m.
TSN/RDS2, the official broadcast partners of Curling Canada’s Season of Champions, will provide live coverage of Canada’s round-robin games, in addition to all playoff games. CLICK HERE for their complete broadcast schedule.
The list of teams, ticket and schedule information can be found on the event website, www.curling.ca/2025worldmen/. Live scoring is available CLICKING HERE.
Media contact:
Al Cameron
Director, Communication & Media Relations
acameron@curling.ca
(403) 463-5500
Kyle Jahns
Manager, Communication and Media Relations
kyle.jahns@curling.ca
204-803-8221
Christopher Hamilton
Head of Communications and Marketing
media@worldcurling.org