New curling season begins for Team Jacobs

The 2014-15 curling season has arrived for Team Jacobs.

Sault natives Brad Jacobs, EJ Harnden, Ryan Harnden and teammate Ryan Fry are in Brockville, Ontario this week for the first event of their curling season.

The team opens the season this weekend at the World Curling Tour’s AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic.

“When this time of the season rolls around, we’re really excited to get back on the ice. You’re itching to get back at it when you haven’t stepped on the ice for four months,” Jacobs said. “We’re really looking forward to it. The first event is an event that we won last year. It’s the first World Curling Tour event, I personally ever went to as a curler in mens curling.”

Jacobs added that there are a number of reason the team has played in the tournament regularly.

“The reason we always play this event is because it’s early, the ice is always good, the organizing committee does a fantastic job and the competition is always top notch,” said Jacobs.

The Jacobs team will also get another chance to play at home when the Syncrude National takes over the Essar Centre beginning on Nov. 19.

“We’re really hoping that the grand slam event in Sault Ste. Marie is the best attended and best grand slam event of all time,” Jacobs said. “We’re looking forward to playing in front of our hometown. Hopefully lots of people come out and cheer us on. When we played in it before, we had some nice cheers and support but we’re hoping now that it’s going to be better than ever.”

The team is coming off a whirlwind two-year that saw the group win the 2013 Tim Horton’s Brier in Edmonton, the Canadian Olympic trials in Winnipeg before winning a gold medal in Sochi, Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

The team also picked up a silver medal at the World Championships in Victoria in 2013 as well.

Jacobs said any past success is something the group plans to leave there.

“We have to throw out any success we had last year and realize that that part of our lives is now over and we’re looking forward,” said Jacobs. “We’ve never won a grand slam event. That’s something we want to accomplish this year. We really are starting with a clean slate and new goals. Obviously the goal is to win every event you go into but realistically will that happen? Probably not but we just want to get better as a team, be better teammates to one another and bring the same intensity we bring to Olympic games, Olympic trials and Brier games to every event.”

The team takes to the ice this season looking to face the best the world has to offer.

“We’ve aligned ourselves with the best competition we could possibly get,” said Jacobs. “All year we’ll be tested.”

The current group, which has been together for two seasons, has a bond that Jacobs calls “special.”

“It’s probably one of the tightest groups, if not the tightest team on tour,” Jacobs said. “We have something special. We can sometimes get away with things that other teams can’t because we’re such a tight-knit group. We really believe in one-another and have a lot of confidence in one another since we know each other so well. We’re privileged to have the group that we have and the skillset.”

To watch a full interview with Brad Jacobs and Local2.ca's Shaylan Spurway, click here