Jacobs set to face Gushue in evening draw at National

As the National continues on Thursday at the Essar Centre, two of Canada’s top teams will meet up in the evening draw.

Sault Ste. Marie’s Brad Jacobs and his team from the Community First Curling Centre will face Brad Gushue of St. John’s, Nfld in draw nine.

The Jacobs rink, which includes third Ryan Fry, second E.J. Harnden and lead Ryan Harnden, enters Thursday with a 2-0 record after beating Brendan Bottcher (Edmonton, Alta.) 7-2 in the opening draw on Tuesday night and Sudbury’s Tanner Horgan 6-3 on Wednesday night.

“What’s great about the first couple of games is we’ve played a lot of touch-shots and we’ve played a lot of draws,” Jacobs said. “Our upweight ability, I’m very confident in. Figuring out where to put the broom and how to throw the rock for the soft weight shots. We’ve had quite a few of those. We’re building on our confidence.”

Gushue also enters Thursday’s meeting with Jacobs at 2-0 following a 9-4 win over Horgan in the opening draw and a 6-4 win over Steve Laycock (Saskatoon, Sask.) on Wednesday night.

Brad Gushue seen during day 1 of the 2016 Boost National Pinty's Grand Slam of Curling event held Dec. 6, 2016 at the Essar Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Kenneth Armstrong/SooToday

The National marks Gushue’s first tournament of the season as skip after missing the first eight tournaments of the season due to a hip/groin issue. Mark Nichols skipped the team in Gushue’s absence.

Jacobs and Gushue is one of five games on the schedule on Thursday night. The other men’s games see Horgan face Laycock and Niklas Edin (Sweden) faces Reid Carruthers (Winnipeg, Man.). The two women’s games will see Jennifer Jones (Winnipeg, Man.) face EunJung Kim (Korea) and Kerri Einarson (Winnipeg, Man.) faces Eve Muirhead (Scotland).